There’s a crisis at the new Playboy Club, insiders tell Page Six, because its management hasn’t been able to train the famed “Playboy Bunnies” to perform basic hosting tasks.
The club — which opened back in September — hired a whole herd of beautiful Bunnies to serve drinks and wait tables at the Hell’s Kitchen spot.
But it appears that managers may have worried more about how the prospective hires looked in a corset and fluffy tail than their relevant experience in the service industry.
“Service has been so bad that new management had to be brought in and they fired half the bunny staff,” a source told us.
Now the club has hired real waiters and culled the Bunnies, although it has kept some of the floppy-eared friends on — with adjusted job descriptions and slashed paychecks.
“They have been stripped of their duty to wait on tables because they cannot do service,” said a source, who added, “Bunnies are now allowed only to run drinks.”
The source said their pay has been cut from $40 an hour to $25 an hour.
Reached for comment, the club told us, “The club is committed to creating a great experience for [its] growing number of members and dinner guests, as well as being a great place to work for all of our employees.”
Now, we’re told, things are back on track and the club’s performing a lot better.
The club is a reboot of the original New York Playboy Club, which closed in 1986. Bunnies at the original included Debbie Harry, Lauren Hutton and Gloria Steinem, who worked there undercover for 11 days in 1963 and wrote the famed exposé “A Bunny’s Tale” for Show magazine.
The original club had strict rules for its Bunnies, laid out in the Bunny Instruction Manual. It outlawed dating members, chewing gum and reporting for duty with an “unkempt tail” or off-center ears.