A year ago, waiters at Chinatown restaurant Jing Fong accused management of taking tip money to pay dim sum cart ladies. Now, another restaurant's managers are under fire for taking tips from servers, but the restaurant is decidedly more upscale. Waiters at Telepan, which got a 25 for food in the most recent Zagat guide, tell NY1 that managers have been helping themselves to tips, which is illegal in NY State: Waiters can be paid below minimum wage (at Telepan, they make $4.60/hour) as long as they receive the tips.
[Former water Femi] Joseph showed NY1 a stack of tip sheets that detail how the tips are divided each night. Looking at this blank tip sheet one can see that managers are boldly listed as one of the groups that get a cut of the tips at the end of the night.
“The managers are making half of what we're making in tips, per shift,” said Joseph.
And Joseph says that might add up to $200 or $300 a week that each waiter is losing.
“It just became more and more difficult for me to make money each week,” said another Telepan employee.
Other waiters say that when they mention it to management, managers intimidate them by "messing" with their schedules and work on the floor. They also say Telepan takes 3% of their tips to cover credit-card charges plus "their hourly wages are rounded down on their paychecks." Telepan did not respond to NY1's request for a comment.
In comments about Saigon Grill's alleged under-payment of employees, some people have chalked up the restaurant's behavior to what happens at reasonably priced establishments. What's surprising about this claim is that it's at a high-end restaurant where many diners may be more conscientious of tipping, especially with the variety of staff that waits on the table (the waiter who take the order, the bread server, the entree server, etc.). Eater writes, "For example, Union Square Hospitality Group, Danny Meyer's restaurant collection, divides tips among hourly employees only; a similar compensation plan is used at Myriad Restaurant Group, Drew Nieporent's outfit."
