When I Tip, You Tip, We Tip

Hoity toity restaurants with $95 tasting menus shouldn’t be dipping into their waiter’s tips. After all, a waiter who makes only $4.60 an hour, as those at [Telepan Restaurant] do, needs his tips. Say he works five, two-person tables a day and gets tipped 20 percent, then he only makes about 200 bucks a night, or $1,000 for a five-day week, or $4,000 a month, or $48,000 a year in undeclared tippage—and we all know that's nothin'! Nevertheless, waiters at this popular Upper West Side eatery are claiming that a precious percentage of their tips are being [shared with management](http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=68607). Lucky for them, New York State Labor Law says that’s illegal, and NY1 has come to their rescue. Indeed, when the paper examined a stack of tip sheets that detail how said tips are divided each night, it was blatantly recorded that managers get a cut. And what’s worse, these waiters say an additional three percent is taken out to cover credit card charges, AND their hourly wages are rounded down on their paychecks. Oh, for shame.