Kentucky pizzeria threatens 24-year-old prospective business owner with lawsuit over an NDA they signed while working there as their first job at 17-years-old: 'I was 17 and just happy to get the job'

What is it with all of the frivolous NDAs that service workers are being forced to sign?

Every day, you hear and read more stories about baristas and other service workers who have been forced to sign an NDA in order to work entry-level service industry jobs, with half-baked excuses being given around protecting business operation and preparation processes, like they're dealing with a cure for cancer or some other miracle discovery.

While these are probably just elaborate scare tactics, the fact remains that being taught how to brew a cup of coffee or toss pizza dough during your first jobs as a teenager is not some great secret that you are able to, or need to, protect by strong-arming some teenager. We have been preparing these foods and beverages for at least the last 100 years, and their practice is common knowledge.

And I'm sorry, but your processes don't need protecting either. It's no secret that running a successful restaurant is a miserably unforgiving line of business to be in, with razor-thin margins and both supply and demand that are treacherously vulnerable to shifting economic landscapes. But managing these businesses is more about tact and tenacity and not some great secret discovery like a miracle-cure or new technology that needs to be protected at all costs to keep the business, well, in business.

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Signed a non compete at 17 for my first job, original owner is now threatening to sue me for opening my own business

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What these are, and all they are, are aggressive attempts to stamp out any fresh-faced newcomers from attempting to strike out on their own against the employers' own already failing business model.
Whether or not these lawsuits would actually hold water doesn't change the fact that a threat of a lawsuit alone holds a promise of a costly battle that most people, let alone a new business owner who has just sunk everything into the business to get it up and running, can afford.
After receiving what appeared to be a very official legal document from a previous employer informing them that they were going to be sued for breaching the terms of an NDA, they had signed at just 17 years old, this new business owner, who had just opened a pizzeria of their own, went seeking advice as to what they should do in the face of this legal threat.
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