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mariah carey
It’s tray chic!
Cafeteria, the famed late-night Chelsea eatery where every table is the cool kids’ table, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. And to mark the occasion its staff spilled to Page Six about their most memorable celebrity encounters in the past quarter century.
Perhaps the most immortal tales are about longtime fan Mariah Carey who was such mainstay that she’d come in on Friday night — and be there to welcome the morning shift.
“I would leave [work on Friday] and come in for Saturday brunch, the next day — AND SHE WOULD STILL BE THERE!,” one staffer, Sara, told us.
Meanwhile, another remembers Carey “running to the deli across the street to buy the host a rose to ask him out.”
And on one New Year’s Eve, the “Make It Happen” singer “made a grand entrance.”
“She started singing. I turned off our music and the entire restaurant was as quiet as a mouse as they all listened,” said a staffer.
Meanwhile, Janet Jackson once mistook the restaurant for a now-defunct gay nightclub.
“She walked in the middle of the dinner service — not even through the main door — thinking it was Splash!,” they said, “She had no clue!”
Madonna once kept the restaurant and pal Ingrid Casares waiting for almost three hours. Needless to say, “Ingrid was pissed off!” (Apparently even dinner companions of Madonna draw a line on manners).
Speaking of etiquette, we’re told Calvin Klein once “waited until his party was seated” only to sit with Barry Diller another table.
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West sent paparazzi into a frenzy when they had one of their first dates there. “We… put up all the umbrella covers on the [windows] to give them privacy.”
More recently Pete Davidson had an awkward moment after his ex Ariana Grande’s epic rebound single came out, which mentions him.
“[He] came in with another girl the night [Grande] just released the song ‘Thank U, Next’ about their break up and we played the song. The restaurant went crazy!”
For another server, the image of Julianne Moore “breastfeeding her child on table 2” is etched into their brain.
And in another more wholesome moment, Amanda Lepore made one trans teen’s dream come true when she autographed a menu for her. “She was from Ohio and cried,” the employee said.
Diddy was so impressed with their menu “he stole one of our cooks” and Graham Norton gifted staff tickets to the “Ab Fab” opening night party, while Mike Tyson once gave staff a scare when security had to deny entry to him and his posse. “He wasn’t happy and it got very tense for the door team.”
It also became something of a chic rehab center for models to recover from Fashion Week, serving up emergency carbs for famished catwalkers before they hit the martinis.
“They would faint and I would run to get a bowl of mashed potatoes to revive them… Once I learned they hadn’t eaten for a whole week, I… fed them and year after year that would be the antidote!” another employee said.
