War at rao’s
ANOTHER finance exec has accused a Rao’s regular of offering up his table at the clubby eatery for charity — then taking it back. But the diner strongly denies any redsauce reneging.
After we reported on a Rao’s row between a Long Island broker and celeb detective Bo Dietl — who’s had a Thursday table at the meatball mecca since 1977 — financial adviser Julian Rubinstein told Page Six: “I had a similar situation with a Rao’s table I won at a charity auction for [the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society].”
Boca Raton, Fla.based Rubinstein claimed that former Ambassador Charles Gargano “donated the table I won” in April 2014. When he contacted Gargano to book it, “He offered me a table nine months away,” in January 2015, “which was fine . . . I said, ‘No problem, I can wait a year’ — it was my birthday.” But “then he called and canceled as he said I did not pay enough” in the auction.
Rubinstein said he shelled out $2,500 for the privilege of the Rao’s reservation. But he says Gargano “told me, ‘I didn’t realize you didn’t pay enough. I wanted $10,000.’ I explained that I exceeded the minimum bid. He said he didn’t care and that was the last I heard from him. It is a shame that these guys donate the table for recognition, then refuse to honor their commitment.”
He added he chased the charity, but “we all gave up. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”
But Gargano — also a former chairman of the Empire State Development Corp. — called Rubinstein’s story “totally untrue. This guy did not buy the table [from me]. He bought it from someone else.” Gargano says he puts his table up for charity just once a year, and when Rubinstein contacted him, “I thought he was someone else . . . who’d made a contribution” to a different cancer fund. “I said, ‘You didn’t get it from me. They didn’t have the right from me to sell the table.’ This guy didn’t get that table from me.”
Page Six reported that a broker, Christopher Bond, won a Rao’s table at a children’s hospital fundraiser for $6,000, but Dietl twice rescheduled the reservation before saying Bond should have bid $10,000.