‘Cult’-run Yellow Deli gets rave reviews across US as escaped members dish on fear behind closed doors

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Behind a chain serving up soups and hot deli sandwiches is a fundamentalist cult accused of exploiting its members – including children – for free labor. 

Since the founding of its Chattanooga, Tennessee, flagship location in 1973, the Yellow Deli has opened at least 33 stores across 11 U.S. states, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, Spain, Brazil and Argentina.

However, none of its workers are paid. Instead, proceeds go toward the communal lifestyles of the members of the Twelve Tribes, which has about 40 communities internationally and approximately 3,000 collective members, according to their website.

“We all live and work together,” the site’s FAQ page reads, adding that all of its volunteers are living a “pure and holy life” through the organization’s teachings.

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A Yellow Deli in Ithaca, New York, near Ithaca College. (Ray Milburn/The Ithacan)

Members of The Twelve Tribes abide by tenets of the New and Old Testaments, live together like the disciples in the book of Acts, work together and worship together. They celebrate Jewish holidays like the Sabbath, Yom Kippur and Shavuot. 

“We hope that through having an open and hospitable place like our Yellow Deli, people will be able to see that we are not really strange and scary, but just friendly folks who love God and our neighbors,” according to the deli’s website, which does not mention the Twelve Tribes directly.

The establishments have many positive reviews on sites like Yelp, with visitors praising the restaurants’ soups, salads, decor and friendly atmosphere.

“Honestly by far the most amazing place I’ve been to in a long while,” one Yelp reviewer wrote of the Oneonta, New York, location. “The atmosphere is beyond warming and friendly and the staff truly treat you like friends… or better yet long-lost companions whom they haven’t seen since years past. I felt welcomed and at home beyond I could imagine. The food is spectacular, the drinks are spectacular and I could not get enough. Highly, highly recommend… 10/10 would die on this claim.”

Mason Sylvia told Fox News Digital that nothing seemed “out of the ordinary” when he first visited his local Yellow Deli location in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and that he “thought it was a mom-and-pop restaurant,” but his views changed after several off-putting experiences. 

“The second time I went, I talked with the cashier who seemed exhausted,” Sylvia said. “I didn’t really think anything of it until the third visit when I met an older man working replenishing pamphlets. He was telling me about their community and the importance of contributing to the betterment of their community, and it was just a kind of unsettling sounding conversation… I later found out that they were some sort of cult, [and that] every employee there is part of their ‘community’ that the older man was talking to me about.

“It was this seemingly innocuous location for lunch, and instead it’s this whole weird thing… I haven’t been back since – the whole thing just creeps me out. I couldn’t tell if [the man] was gauging my interest for recruitment at the time, but I’ve always been too creeped out to go back.”

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A Yellow Deli location in Vista, California. (H.H. Rodriguez/Google Reviews)

Dr. Steven Hassan, a former member of the Moonie cult who founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center after escaping their influence, described the group behind the sandwich-making venture as exhibiting cult-like practices.

“[The Twelve Tribes does] everything from changing [recruits’] name[s], telling them that they have to surrender all their money and all of their possessions to the group,” Hassan explained. “They have to change their clothing. Women have to wear dresses and have their hair out and men have to grow beards. [Their indoctrination] includes sleep deprivation, rigid rules and regulations depending on the man for obedience and dependency because they think they’re the only true Christians on Earth.”

Hassan, who has written several books on cults, told Fox News Digital that it is not atypical for cults to fund their ventures through legitimate business operations. 

“[Cults have legitimate businesses] almost all the time – especially the bigger the cult,” Hassan said. “The universal with authoritarian cults is power, money and sex. Those are the three big motivations. And in my former cult, which is the Moonies, I have a list on my website that’s 71 pages, single spaced. And most of those pages are businesses owned by the Moonies. They own a lot of the fishing industry of the United States’ sushi industry, boat building, ginseng, tea, jewelry, on and on and on.”

The Twelve Tribes also runs another business, Maté Factor, which is operated by cult members. 

In addition to their restaurants, Hassan said that the Twelve Tribes members “would go to music concerts and festivals and have buses and help people who were having bad trips,” then “bring them back to their compounds, recruiting people.”

Hassan noted that the Twelve Tribes have been accused of corporal punishment against children and labor trafficking. According to FBI interviews with former members, in which the group is described as a “cult,” it is against the group’s rules “for community members to associate with others outside of the community” and new members receive “public relations training” that discourages talking to the police.

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The flagship location of the Yellow Deli, opened in 1973, is pictured in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Google Maps)

In their bylaws, the group claims that “drug and alcohol abuse is an attempt to fill the emptiness and soothe the pain caused by a bad conscience,” and that “they have no place in [their lives] because we are forgiven.”

However, former members have alleged that they were unknowingly drugged, with the FBI writing that “there is drug use at the commune through baking drugs into ritual bread. LSD and hallucinogenic plants are usually used.”

There are allegations of sexual abuse within the communities, according to the FBI interviews, with one interviewee alleging that “punishment within the cult is being beaten with a rod and having your wife or children sexually assaulted by cult members.”

The Twelve Tribes could not be reached for comment.

Those who want to leave the fundamentalist cult, Hassan said, are often unable to due to imposed isolation from family and friends and the lack of funds that come with working for free. 

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Hassan said the cult’s delis can ingratiate themselves into communities, where people may not know about the group’s practices.

“They don’t know who they are, and they seem friendly and warm,” he said. “They’re nice people. People in cults are good people and nice people, but they have this us versus them attitude…  they deceive the locals.” 

“Yeah, they make good food, but it’s used primarily as a recruitment vehicle,” Hassan said.

Christina Coulter is a U.S. and World reporter for Fox News Digital. Email story tips to christina.coulter@fox.com.