A feud is simmering between waiters and busboys at the troubled Cipriani restaurant empire, as the two groups battle on divvying up their nightly tip money. "It's a war," said one busboy, who apparently isn't afraid to sleep with the fishes. more ›

A waiter at the Waldorf-Astoria is claiming the hotel made him go by a different name, because apparently "John" is a lot less frightening than "Mohamed." Moroccan-born Mohamed Kotbi has worked for the hotel since 1984, but said on September 13th, 2001, he was given a nametag to wear that said "John." He claims hotel management told him, "We don’t want to scare our guests." Whereas with "John" he'll just be associated with the likes of John Wilkes Booth and John Wayne Gacy. more ›

Here's an argument in favor of more paid sick leave: according to a new study, one in eight restaurant workers has come to work at least twice in the past year while suffering from vomiting or diarrhea. Factors associated with workers coming in while sick include a lack of on-call workers and lack of policies requiring workers to report their illnesses to managers. Author Dr. Stephen Sumner told CNN, "It may be if you're working in a busy place your manager is less likely to send you home, or you may feel bad to leave your coworker stranded on a busy shift." more ›

There's something comforting about knowing that most of the time, if you ask your server if they have a job outside of serving, they will tell you they are an actor. You can spend your meal knowing that whatever you do, you are secondhandedly supporting the arts by either giving them a good tip, or giving them quality material. But has New York's Bedbug Scare 2010 begun to put an end to all of that? The Wall Street Journal reports that the city's struggling actors are now turning to the lucrative business of bedbug hunting. Now we're just one step away from the bugs invading Broadway. Seriously, folks. more ›

Waiters who worked as suite attendants at the US Open tennis tournaments are suing their catering-company employers for stiffing them on overtime and screwing them out of tips. For many employees, US Open shifts routinely start at 9 a.m. and run through the last set at night. Most were paid $17 hour to operate luxury suites for rich big shots in the blazing heat—but while the catering companies took a 21 percent "service charge" from their posh clientele, that never trickled down to the help, the lawsuit alleges. more ›

Sheesh, now there are all these rules! A week after would-be Hamptons restaurateur Bruce Buschel published his list of 100 things restaurant servers must never do, longtime bartender and restaurant manager Patrick Maguire has fired back with some rules for people who eat at restaurants. Apparently, snapping fingers, demanding perfection, and starting a sentence with Gimmee or Get me are all frowned upon. But there are all sorts of other no-nos that come with paying strangers to serve you food. To wit: more ›

Speaking of things waiters should "never" do, here's something a diner should never do: throw your food at the server and threaten to kill him or her. On Wednesday night one Steven Scott, 40, was arrested for assaulting a server at the New York Fried Chicken Diner on Fulton Street in East New York. Hapless waiter Baljit Singh says it all started when Scott came in at 11:30 p.m. and ordered mashed potatoes. After a couple bites, Scott "started griping about the nasty tasting food." So he was given a new serving of potatoes, but this didn't satisfy him either. Oh, no it did not. more ›

Polemicist Christopher Hitchens is calling on diners to collectively resist the “barbaric” way servers automatically refill diners’ wine glasses when they’ve got a bottle on the table. To Hitchens it’s a crisis not just because it’s clearly part of their conspiracy to inflate the bill (the faster the table kills one bottle, the sooner they order another) but also because they interrupt his anecdotes with their incessant reaching and pouring and serving. more ›

When restaurants charge larger parties an automatic service fee – usually 20% – it’s generally understood that the money goes to the servers as a gratuity. But some restaurants have been keeping the lion’s share of the fee and passing along just a small fraction to the staff. Now a state appeals court has ruled that the practice is as illegal as it is outrageous. more ›