The former busboy suing Justin Timberlake’s Upper East Side restaurant for stiffing him is the stand-up employee who happily accepted a $200 tip for returning a $200,000 watch a guest had dropped.
Felipe Santiago Ramales became a symbol of integrity when Page Six reported he found the diamond-encrusted timepiece while cleaning up after Kid Rock’s Christmas party last year.
“All the waiters said, ‘Keep it. Don’t say nothing,’ ” he recalled in a recent interview. “But there was something in my mind that said I have to give it back.”
When he returned the watch, he said, Timberlake’s business partner “reached into his pants and gave me $100. Then Kid Rock gave me another $100.”
He was fine with that – but when the Southern Comfort eatery cut his $300 paycheck to $72 by deducting meals he was too busy to eat and stiffed him on tips, that was too much. So he quit and went to court, said his lawyer, Jeffrey Gottlieb.
Restaurant lawyer Marc Wenger described the suit as “meritless.”