ORLANDO, Fla. — Maria DeSimone never got a call back when she applied for a job at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Palm Bay, Fla., at the age of 40. But her 16-year-old daughter did.

DeSimone became one of the 55 examples from across the country the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission used in a lawsuit against the restaurant chain, based in Louisville, Ky.

In April, the suit was settled for $12 million.

“They’re discriminating against 40-year-old people and up,” DeSimone said in a deposition. “And now my 16-year-old daughter’s friends are getting hired there.”

In Central Florida, the huge service industry, particularly areas that deal directly with customers, is fertile ground for age discrimination complaints, according to experts.

One of Orlando’s biggest companies, Darden Restaurants, is battling an age-discrimination lawsuit, and it’s not alone. New federal statistics released for 2016 show an uptick in EEOC age discrimination complaints, although not a record high.

The EEOC has taken particular aim at restaurants over hiring practices in recent years. The agency filed a suit against Ruby Tuesday on May 17.

The Commission alleges that Ruby Tuesday informed a 59-year-old job applicant in Boca Raton, Fla., that the chain was seeking “a candidate who could maximize longevity” and turned him down for a manager’s position.

Darden has denied the allegations of the EEOC’s suit and said discriminating against older workers is “inconsistent with our business philosophy and the manner in which we operate.”

Age discrimination is real in the food industry, said Jesse Newton, co-founder and vice president of the Central Florida Restaurant Association.

“It’s never a policy, but it’s an unwritten rule in many establishments,” Newton said.

One server at a high-end restaurant chain in Orlando said a new manager pressures and criticizes him and other co-workers over 40 more than younger workers. He asked not to be identified because he feared it would jeopardize his employment.

“It seemed like unless you were a younger person you were going to be targeted,” said the 50-year-old man. “Some of the older servers had always joked about my age and it was fine and I would just laugh it off. But it started to come from my manager. It was an effort to intimidate me and harass me into quitting.”

In the Texas Roadhouse case, applicants were told “there are younger people here who can grow with the company;” and “you seem older to be applying for this job,” according to a complaint from the EEOC.

Before settling the case, Texas Roadhouse filed a 30-page response that said the restaurant did not have any “centralized” policy for discriminating against older workers and that it acted in good faith to comply with laws protecting aging workers. In the judge’s final order in the case, Texas Roadhouse agreed to set up a claims process to identify and compensate people over 40 who applied to the restaurant between 2007 and 2014.

Newton said there are sometimes good reasons to hire younger or more experienced servers. Hooters successfully argued in court in a case brought by one applicant that its servers are similar to actors or fashion models.

“On the opposite end, places like Christner’s, Norman’s, Eddie V’s and other prestigious restaurants want to hire experienced servers who have great knowledge of wine and service techniques to achieve the level of service they desire,” he said, referring to several restaurants with locations in Orlando and elsewhere.

The agency took 1,661 age-discrimination complaints against employers in Florida in 2016, a 6 percent increase compared with 2015.

The number of complaints in Florida is below the peak in 2011 of 1,782, but still higher than prerecession years. In 2016 there were 20,857 age discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC nationwide, which was also up over 2015.

“Nationally, people are working longer and later into their careers,” said Jill Schwartz, a labor employee attorney. “For one reason or another, sometimes companies don’t want to hire or keep older workers.”