Ex-waiters at Jem Caterers sue owner over tips

Two former waiters for a high-end Roslyn Heights catering company have filed a class-action lawsuit against the business' owner, saying he collected a 20 percent "service charge" from customers but didn't pass the money to staffers.

Yakov Khaimov and Boris Ilyayev, both of Queens, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Mineola. It names Michael Einhorn, their former boss at Jem Caterers, which provides catering services at the Royalton Mansion.

The lawsuit claims that as many as 100 former waiters, bus staff, bartenders, hosts, food runners and other employees may be eligible for back pay.

"When you call it a service charge, it's reasonable for the patron to think the money is going to the service," said Jeffrey Brown, the attorney for Khaimov and Ilyayev. "They're preying upon the moral conscience and goodwill of the customer."

Brown said the practice is common, and the lawsuit against Jem is one of about 30 his firm has filed against caterers in the region.

"Customers were led to believe . . . that the service charge was a gratuity and that it would be distributed to staff who worked the event," the lawsuit says. "Plaintiffs . . . were not paid the service charge."

Einhorn said Wednesday that he does pass on the gratuity to his employees. He said he generally charges parties a gratuity fee of $600 to $800 at catering events and distributes that amount among staff members.

He said employees earn between $12 and $18 an hour, and that their paychecks will show that a percentage of what they earn comes from gratuities.

"I've always tried to be fair," Einhorn said. "I was a waiter myself."