An owner of the Signature Room shuffled its assets around to avoid paying workers who were abruptly laid off when the iconic restaurant and lounge shuttered in 2023, a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court this week alleges.
The Signature Room closed suddenly in September 2023 after decades near the top of the former John Hancock Center. More than 100 workers lost their jobs. The Signature Room’s parent company, Infusion Management Group, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy shortly thereafter.
Victor Valentine, center, and Gabriel Montesinos, right, former workers at the Signature Room with Unite Here Local 1, celebrate outside 875 N. Michigan Ave., March 28, 2024, the building formerly known as the John Hancock Center, after the owner of the restaurant was found liable and ordered to pay over $1.5 million in back pay and benefits. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
In 2024, a federal judge ruled the Signature Room workers were owed $1.52 million in back pay and benefits under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires businesses to give two months’ notice of certain mass layoffs and business closures.
But Unite Here Local 1, the union representing the former Signature Room staffers, said in the lawsuit that the workers never got paid.
Infusion Management’s bankruptcy case was closed in 2024 with the trustee assigned to the case reporting he had not paid out any money on behalf of the estate, according to court records.
Unite Here’s lawsuit, filed Thursday, seeks to hold the Signature Room’s owners, Richard Roman and Nick Pyknis, personally liable for the Signature Room’s debts to its workers.
According to the lawsuit, Pyknis was removed from his role as an officer with Infusion Management in spring 2023, before the Signature Room shut down, because he was suffering from “cognitive decline.” Roman had Pyknis’ power of attorney when it came to company business, according to the lawsuit.
The suit alleges that after the bankruptcy, Roman fraudulently transferred assets from Infusion to an LLC in order to pay off his own and Pyknis’ personal debts to the Signature Room’s landlord.
The Signature Room’s lessor had sued Roman and Pyknis personally after the Signature Room’s closure because they had signed personal guaranties for the lease agreement, according to the lawsuit.
Then in spring 2024, Roman transferred Infusion’s interest in assets remaining in the Signature Room, including kitchen equipment and liquor, to the LLC, RSR Capital Group, the lawsuit alleges.
RSR then used those assets to resolve Roman and Pyknis’ individual debts to the Signature Room’s former landlord, the lawsuit alleges.
“Roman directed and controlled the assets of Infusion and RSR to be used for his own and Pyknis’s benefit rather than to satisfy creditors,” including the former Signature Room employees, the lawsuit reads. “This is an injustice that requires the corporate veil of Infusion be pierced to hold Roman and Pyknis personally liable for the debts of Infusion.”
The lawsuit also alleges that Roman transferred assets, via the LLC, to himself and Pyknis shortly before the Signature Room shut down and Infusion filed for bankruptcy.
RSR had $500,000 in cash on hand in September 2023, the “sole purpose” of which was to extend a line of credit to Infusion, the lawsuit alleges.
But on Sept. 25 — days before the Signature Room shut down — RSR paid that $500,000 directly to Roman and Pyknis, the lawsuit alleges. On Sept. 28, the Signature Room announced it was closing.
A person walks by signage for the Signature Room and Lounge inside a lobby of the 875 N. Michigan Ave. building on May 30, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)
In a statement, Unite Here Local 1 President Karen Kent said the Signature Room “will now be remembered as the fairy tale restaurant that vanished overnight, leaving dedicated staff and loyal customers in the lurch.”
“Despite the Signature Room owners’ brazen attempts to cheat their employees and evade the law, our union has continued to pursue enforcement of the federal judgement against these deadbeats so that former Signature Room workers get the justice they deserve,” Kent said.
Attempts to reach attorneys for the defendants were unsuccessful Friday.
Also this week, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint alleging Infusion Management illegally failed to bargain with Unite Here when it shut down the Signature Room. The complaint, which is an amended version of an initial complaint originally filed in December, also seeks back pay for the laid off workers.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/23/signature-room-assets-lawsuit/
