For Tommy Saleh, Saturday evenings in the summer often involve telling powerful people one of their least favorite words: no.
A cultural programming and marketing consultant at The Surf Lodge, a popular Hamptons spot for Wall Streeters, Saleh has to regularly tell customers that they can’t bring additional guests to their bottle-service table at the last minute.
“A lot of people are powerful and entitled, they think they can get two more people,” Saleh said. “They want to throw money at you, and it’s not really about money anymore, it’s about being annoying to the table next to you or at capacity.”
The Surf Lodge doesn’t just offer bottle-service tables and live music — it’s also a seaside hotel and restaurant in Montauk. Business Insider spoke to six current and former employees about what it’s like behind the scenes, and whether the infamous, three-figure chicken tender tower is as good as finance interns seem to think.
The place is packed with the powerful
Business Insider verified all of the staffers’ employment. They each said most of the weekend guests are in their mid-20s or 30s, mainly from the corporate and creative worlds. Saleh said he’s seen both business deals and marriages start at the property, and London Liu, who was a reservationist in 2022 and 2023, compared the crowd to the reality TV show “Summerhouse” — but “on steroids.”
“It was a lot of emailing,” Liu, 33, told Business Insider, about her time as a reservationist. “I was glued to my phone 24/7, from the moment I woke up to the second I went to bed.”
She said she fielded all of the restaurant reservation requests for parties of more than 10 people, and estimated she’d get more than 100 emails each weekend day. Liu also worked as a part-time maitre d’ in the restaurant in 2022.
“The people just start piling on, and it’s just non-stop, go, go, go,” she said. All of the employees Business Insider spoke to said that the environment was high-pressure, but most of the guests were generous and polite.
Jordan Silver, 25, worked as a busser on the beach deck, which is an even bigger draw than the restaurant for the weekend crowd. During his summers there in 2022 and 2023, he said he was usually responsible for seven or eight tables each night. The tables “would fill up immediately,” he said.
Money is everywhere — but it can’t buy you everything
On popular weekends like July 4, Silver said the best tables in front of the stage could go for $20,000. More inexpensive ones cost between $3,000 and $5,000, he said.
A representative for The Surf Lodge told Business Insider that beach tables cost between $250 and $750 per person, and that tables on the deck go for between $500 and $1,000 per person.
The cost of a table is a spending minimum — guests either order food and drinks worth that much, or they’re charged the difference. Silver didn’t usually see the checks because he wasn’t a server, but said tables would frequently go over their minimum. He wouldn’t be surprised if some tables spent up to $40,000.
“There’s a handful of high rollers who typically end up buying the most expensive tables and then go over anyway,” he said. “They often come with like 30 people.”
Saleh, who has worked at The Surf Lodge for more than a decade, said the biggest spenders come on Saturday. That’s when the most people try to squeeze extra guests into their tables or snag a VIP bracelet.
“Everybody wants to be in the VIP area,” he said. “It’s not necessarily about money, but we have a certain number of people who can be there, and we’re just going to stick to the rules.”
In addition to long waits, some restaurant-goers had a particular gripe they couldn’t buy or talk their way out of: no-show and cancellation fees. When Liu worked there, guests had to cancel a reservation within 48 hours or they’d get charged, and she said front-of-house staff often managed their anger.
“We had a lot of interactions where people were upset about that,” she said, adding that she understood their frustration.
The money flowed both ways. None of the employees Business Insider spoke to shared exactly how much they made, but Liu said she was happy with her salary, and Silver said it was hard to turn down the prospect of working there this summer.
“The same way people spend 15 grand on a table, they tip 20% on that 15 grand, probably more,” Silver said. “It’s one of the best places to work because you make great money — really, really good money.”
Lots of alcohol and ‘genius’ food choices
Saleh said the drinking at The Surf Lodge and other places he works has slowed down in recent years, and data show young people are generally consuming less booze than they used to. Still, Silver said he saw the alcohol flow.
“It’s a place where a lot of drinking is, so obviously, every once in a while, you’re going to get some difficult people,” he said, adding that those instances were rare. “In those situations, security is typically handling all of that stuff.”
When people are drinking, they often need something to sop up the alcohol. For many at The Surf Lodge, that means chicken tenders — sometimes an entire tower of them. The Surf Lodge told Business Insider a tower costs $145, and Silver said it’s “genius.”
One might assume that guests are talking about high-profile deals or the people moving the markets, but it seems like the tenders may have been a hotter topic of conversation, at least from where Liu was standing.
“I would always hear people talking about them,” she said.
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