The last time we heard about the embattled Hawaiian Tropic Zone restaurant in Times Square was February 2009, when the owners announced it was shutting down temporarily for a $500,000 renovation. HTZ—infamous for its scantily-clad servers and the former manager who (allegedly!) assaulted them—faced multiple lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, assault, and discriminatory hiring. But surely once it reopened after its glamorous facelift, everyone would forget all about that negative press! Instead, the facelift turned into a face-off, and everyone pretty much forgot Hawaiian Tropic Zone ever existed in Times Square. Today Zagat Buzz notices HTZ is RIP. Try to pull yourself together and make it through the rest of the day. more ›

After agreeing to settle an explosive $600 million lawsuit filed by five female former employees, Hawaiian Tropic Zone has backed away from a deal to settle out of court for $2 million. It's a surprising move for HTZ, which is famous for its bikini-clad servers; having reopened its midtown location in May, you might think the Riese Organization, HTZ's parent company, would just want this to go away. Each of the women have accused upper management of looking the other way as the former general manager at the midtown location turned the establishment into a "sexual playground" for "boyhood fantasies." more ›

Lawyers for the recently-reopened Hawaiian Tropic Zone have failed to convince a judge that a discrimination lawsuit against the restaurant should be dismissed. Now it's up to a jury to decide whether management at the Times Square HTZ turned Melody Morales down for a job because her deportment was too ethnic. Morales filed the suit back in January after managers allegedly told her, "We will not hire you because you have a 'speech problem.' You have a Latin accent. You don't speak white. You are ghetto." more ›

The waitress who was rejected from her "dream job" as a bikini waitress at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone is now being accused of advertising herself as a Craigslist prostitute by lawyers for the restaurant chain. 21-year-old Melody Morales has filed a million dollar lawsuit against HTZ because a manager at the Times Square eatery rejected her application because he said that she had a "speech problem." The problem? It was "too ghetto." more ›

21-year-old Melody Morales says her "dream job" of working at Hawaiian Tropic Zone was crushed by managers who refused to give her a shot because of her Latin roots. So Morales, who grew up on the Upper West Side, is following the lead of a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit against the Times Square theme restaurant, which is being sued by employees who accuse corporate brass of covering up a manager's repeated sexual abuse. Morales says her many attempts to get work at HTZ were finally shot down by managers who told her, "We will not hire you because you have a 'speech problem.' You have a Latin accent. You don't speak white. You are ghetto." Her lawyer wants $130,000 a year for every year she might have worked there, plus punitive damages. Morales, who the Post reports has been "reduced to working in a bikini bar in upstate Ossining," tells the tabloid, "I'm five-foot-six. I'm slim and slender. I got boobs. Ok? I was perfect for the job." more ›

That $600 million discrimination lawsuit brought by four ex-employees of Hawaiian Tropic Zone is heating up: the plaintiff accusing one of the managers of raping her in the back of a cab says HT Zone's top brass bribed her with hush money, which is why she didn't go to the cops until some seven months after the incident. We've known for some time that general manager Anthony Rakis allegedly drugged former manager Giulietta Consalvo, then threw money at the cab driver during the assault, saying "Keep driving, buddy." Now court documents obtained by the Daily News reveal that Consalvo was given a $5,000 bonus and a $10,000 raise after the alleged rape, which she accepted in exchange for silence. Owners of the midtown restaurant, whose bikini-clad waitresses make Hooters look like Chuck E. Cheese, are accused of turning a blind eye as Rakis ran wild, demanding oral sex from employees and punishing those who "refused to submit." more ›

Dennis Riese, CEO of the Riese organization that owns the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, is coming out against allegations of sexual assault and rape involving a Tropic manager filed in a lawsuit against the chain this week. Riese claims that Giulietta Consalvo, the woman who accuses manager Anthony Rakis of raping her in a cab, told him in 2006 that she was in fact not raped and even recommended a friend of hers to be Rakis's personal assistant after the alleged attack. Riese claims that the women who filed suit are simply trying to shake the company down and had asked for $100 million a year ago if they would remain silent on the matter. Another former employee Tiffany Studstill tells the Post that she thinks the women who filed the suit "are doing it for money" and that while she worked at the restaurant, she "never saw anyone in management do anything inappropriate." She also denies the suit's claim that she and Rakis had a relationship. more ›

More sordid details have emerged from that explosive $600 million discrimination lawsuit brought by four ex-employees of Hawaiian Tropic Zone, who accuse executives of ignoring their complaints against former manager Anthony Rakis. At a press conference yesterday, one of the plaintiffs, former manager Giulietta Consalvo—who accuses Rakis of drugging and raping her in the back of a cab in 2006—told reporters, "I want to see him pay criminally. Absolutely, he deserves his freedoms taken away from him. I went through the proper channels, through the corporate . . . chain of command that they tell you to do when you have such complaints...and my voice went unheard." more ›

Midtown's Hawaiian Tropic Zone Restaurant, whose bikini-clad waitresses make Hooters look like Chuck E. Cheese, has been hit with a $600 million discrimination lawsuit by four female former employees who accuse executives of ignoring their complaints against one-time general manager Anthony Rakis. The lawsuit declares that Rakis's relentless sexual harassment escalated into rape after a pre-opening party in 2006, when he jumped into the cab of former floor manager Giulietta Consalvo. Rakis allegedly threw money at the driver during the assault and said, "Keep driving, buddy," leaving her at her apartment "appearing drugged and disoriented." more ›

Maybe it was just the red carpet, but most of the people we spoke to seemed particularly excited about the new digs for the James Beard Foundation Awards, black-tie affair held last night at Avery Fisher Hall to honor some of the country's best chefs, restaurateurs, and culinary professionals. Susan Ungaro, the President of JBF, noted that originally, James Beard had moved to New York to become an opera singer, but had to earn a living until he hit the big time. He started a catering company and the rest, as they say, is history, but she noted that he would have been pretty excited to be up on that stage. more ›

Untitled, by Jeanettics. more ›

1. A girl was shot after a community center Halloween party on Saturday - and there may be a link to the Chicken Noodle rappers
2. From Upper East Side mansion to 7 World Trade Center: The Academy of the Sciences have moves downtown
3. Fun fact: 73% of the city's registered domestic partnerships are for straight couples
4. Alan Hevesi is persona-non-grata the Democrats' Election Day party... politics is so like high school!
5. Buy your own CBGB's chairs on eBay:
6. Le Cirque and Hawaiian Tropic Zone have really good publicists, given the ink they get... and why aren't we surprised that Mets hottie David Wright would be at Hawaiian Tropic Zone?
7. NBC might be a one-show-about-sketch-comedy network, as it could be axing Studio 60
8. The Knicks waive Jalen Rose... it's too early to say anything about season's Knicks team, but they've gotta be better than last season's (maybe they'll just have the second worst season ever)

This week, we hit the mailbox….not ours but others for seriously good entertainment. more ›

Sure, the a Hawaiian Tropic Zone Restaurant in midtown is hot - its grand opening was so crowded it had to be shut down and its waitresses wearing bikinis while serving food and drink. But if you thought the waitresses wore bikinis because they couldn't afford more clothes, think again. It turns out that many of the waitresses are women who win Hawaiian Tropic contests across the country and were given the chance to strut their stuff and sling the hash in the city. The Post reveals that there's basically a Hawaiian Tropic dorm where most of the women live:

The Texans live with eight other recruits in two three-bedroom pads in an eight-story walkup on the Upper East Side owned by Dennis Riese, who owns the Hawaiian Tropic Zone with PM nightclub honcho Adam Hock. more ›

Julia Moskin sits in for Bruni again this week, gives two stars to the new dining room at the Morgan Library. It's eccentric, she says--open only during museum hours, which means that it only serves dinner on Friday nights, and even then only until 9pm. But "there's no institution that joins a menu and a museum as seamlessly." more ›