What was once deemed NYC‘s hottest restaurant has now been consumed by disturbing allegations. Owned by fashion icon Ralph Lauren, The Polo Bar has long been a go-to nightspot for many A-listers, including Hollywood big-shots like George Clooney, Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio. In addition to actors frequenting the bar and restaurant location, influential figures like Meghan Markle and Kim Kardashian, and faces behind US politics like Kamala Harris, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, have been previously pictured around the place.
NYC’s The Polo Bar owned by Ralph Lauren hit by lawsuit
Open Monday through Sunday, the swanky location is so posh that it even demands its visitors to adorn a “dress code of smart and elegant attire,” as per the official website. Strict guidelines establish that guests choosing to wear athleticwear, beachwear, T-shirts, hoodies, ripped jeans or hat will be turned away. The Ralph Lauren restaurant even asks its guests to treat their staff with respect and kindness. Offering a comprehensive ‘Guest Code of Conduct’ handout, The Polo Bar website noted, “as an organisation, we are committed to maintaining a safe, secure, and inclusive working environment.”
However, all these heavy needs demanded from the guest now seem nothing more than hollow and fickle. A New York Post report, dated Friday (US time), outed The Polo Bar for harbouring a “toxic culture… and rampant drug use and alcohol consumption at work.” Frank Nobiletti, a veteran former employee, filed a federal lawsuit against the iconic restaurant that once used to be his own workplace.
Former employee alleges sexual harassment at NYC restaurant famous among George Clooney and others
Having filed the lawsuit on July 22, 2025, the ex-employee claims to have himself faced “terrible sexual harassment.” He was fired last year in February after his complaint reached the HR. On the contrary, higher-ups are believed to have told him at the time that he had been cut off “for drinking at work.” However, Nobiletti’s legal documents stated that since its opening in 2016, the Polo Bar management and employees have regularly drunk alcohol and used unlawful drugs during their official hours. They reportedly faced “little to no consequences” for the same.
As per the legal filing, Nobiletti has accused male bosses of groping subordinates and covering up their misconduct under the guise of uniform checks. His formal accusations list out names of the bar’s events manager and international hospital director, Michael Lewis and Darnell Dodson, respectively, as two people who inappropriately touched him on separate accounts. These people no longer work at the restaurant and bar.
Additionally, Nobiletti contended in his suit that Dodson maintained a streak of employing only physically attractive male workers regardless of their experience, or even the lack thereof, so that he could potentially strike up a sexual relationship with them. The lawsuit goes on to state that men who acquiesced would end up getting “preferential treatment.”
Workers accused of ‘rating’ women customers, using illegal drugs on-site
Furthermore, women customers are also believed to have become distant victims of the workers’ sick mentality. The 42-year-old former Polo Bar employee alleged that people on the job would play a disturbing “Rating Game,” as per which women customers in their midst would be “rated based on attractiveness.” As a result, male servers allegedly ended up regularly spewing “offensive and graphic sexual comments” about the women guests.
On top of that, he has even claimed to have often spotted managers and servers openly using cocaine at the premises. But that’s not all. Frank’s lawsuit further suggested that a server once went on to sell the drug at the restaurant, while other workers “regularly mixed cocaine with water in a spray bottle and used that bottle to ingest cocaine” through their skin despite being on duty on-site.
The Polo Bar responds…
Ralph Lauren’s establishment has since responded to the allegations by painting Nobilleti in the wrong. They again turned back to the ex-employee’s termination, which they claimed was “based on clear evidence of his misconduct.” Suggesting that the former staff member’s accusations had been taken into account and subsequently investigated, the Polo Bar determined them as baseless and holding no merit.