‘Gratuitous’ suit vs. Danny Meyer
S HAKE Shack king Danny Meyer and other top restaurateurs just got socked with maybe the dumbest lawsuit in the annals of eating — but they should chew hard on the warning it sends.
Meyer’s popular places, such as Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and Marta, recently dropped tipping in favor of a “service-included” format. So did superpricey Eleven Madison Park and Andrew Tarlow’s Brooklyn spots, including Reynard.
The goal was to pay workers more equitably and make customers’ lives easier. But the class- action suit claims the restaurateurs were really out to illegally line their own pockets.
Restaurant-industry insiders said the “intent” at service-included spots was to raise overall wages by the same percentages as menu price hikes at any particular place. But they might not kick in all once as they would include a combination of salary lifts and revenue-sharing paid out over time.
The suit accuses Meyer of ringleading a price-fixing “conspiracy” that “unlawfully transfers millions of dollars from customers and servers to restaurant owners” in violation of antitrust laws.
It says that “service-included” places raised menu prices by higher percentages than customers previously tipped.
But the claims are ridiculous. For one thing, gratuities of 25-30 percent were not uncommon at The Modern or even more expensive Eleven Madison Park.
No law requires staffers to be tipped. Moreover, “service included” is fairer to workers. Meyer said on “60 Minutes” Sunday that it helped reduce a “300 percent disparity” between waiters who earned tips and kitchen workers who received only low salaries.
A spokesman for Meyer told The Post, “We intend to vigorously contest the suit.”
It would be a big mistake to laugh it off. Although the case was filed in California, it’s only a matter of time before ruthless New York barristers get into the act.