The New York Times is getting deal flow from Substack.
The Sports Gossip Show is going to The Athletic
Good morning everyone. I liked this essay about giving into guilty pleasures in order to remind ourselves that we’re alive.
I’m debating going live on Substack this weekend for the one-year anniversary of my viral newsletter, The Machine in the Garden. I still can’t believe how angry the comments are.
Today’s newsletter includes:
is going to The Athletic, a lawsuit against The Polo Bar involving cocaine and harassment, a frozen yogurt renaissance, and a new luxury spa in New York.📱 Have a story you think I should look into? Text the anonymous Feed Me Hotline: (646) 494-3916 📱
Andy Cohen, why aren’t you doing anything about the chaos on East 55th street? According to a recent lawsuit filed by a former server, Frank Nobiletti, at The Polo Bar against his ex-employer, the Ralph Lauren restaurant isn’t just one of the most hard-to-get reservations in New York City — there’s also a lot of wild stuff going on behind the scenes:
Staff would mix cocaine with water in spray bottles for discreet ingestion, the suit alleges. It also claims one server sold cocaine at work and altered customer tips when he thought they were insufficient.
According to the lawsuit, this server also developed something called the “Rating Game.”. As part of the Rating Game, women customers were rated based on attractiveness. The male servers allegedly made frequent “offensive and graphic sexual comments about the women customers.”
If tables in private dining rooms didn’t hit their $7k minimum, the suit alleges, staff would charge their own drinks to the party’s bill.
Nobiletti’s suit also claims the restaurant fostered a toxic culture that included instances of sexual harassment and assault. I reached out to The Polo Bar for a comment this morning, and they replied, “We have high standards for how employees conduct themselves and no tolerance for misconduct, so we take swift action when these standards are not met. This includes Mr. Nobiletti’s termination that was based on clear evidence of his misconduct. Because we take all employee-related concerns seriously, we thoroughly investigated Mr. Nobiletti’s allegations and determined they have no merit.”