Memo to celebrities who frequent Upper East Side eatery Nello: The tips you left just before the pandemic hit never got to the servers, workers claim.
Bartenders and waiters at Nello say that the multi-millionaire owner Thomas Makkos, 60, stiffed them out of three paychecks each, some totaling up to $4,000. The checks represent the pooled tips of the waitstaff, they said.
Nello has been as a celebrity hangout for years. Jennifer Lopez, Mickey Rourke, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, Chris Cuomo, Donald Trump Jr. are just some of the rich and famous who think nothing of paying more than $100 for a plate of pasta and bottles of wine that employees say was often marked up by 60 percent.
Makkos — who reportedly owns a townhouse in the neighborhood, as well as a home in Southampton and an estate on Fisher’s Island, Florida — did not return several messages seeking comment.
Three employees told the Post they’ve called Makkos’ office repeatedly. They said he told them the checks had been mailed out but nobody has received them.
![Nello owner Thomas Makkos]()
Nello let most of its 30 workers go March 19 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo told restaurants to close. It has been operating with a skeletal staff of four since then with only delivery and takeout available. The laid-off employees’ last checks were issued to them on Feb. 19.
Makkos, who has a checkered past of fallings-out with partners and litigation against him, emigrated from Greece with his father and brother as a teenager. His father began selling hot dogs out of a cart in the city. His sons became vendors extraordinaire who at one point had permits to run thousands of food carts and have since built a portfolio of many businesses.
“I am just really taken aback that someone with his money would treat us like this in the middle of the pandemic,” Anthony Vacca, 32, a Nello bartender, told the Post. “Some people have families to feed and they need that money.”
Makkos “lives like a king in Manhattan and the Hamptons,” a Nello waiter told the Post. “I live in Queens. I have a little bit of savings but I could use that money.”
Said another Nello bartender, “I’m running out of money and my anxiety is through the roof. The brazenness of [Makkos] not responding to us and not paying us is bizarre. There are other employees I know who are down to their last $100.”