Manhattan: Borough Of Shoes

Enterprising bikini traffickers try their hardest to erase whatever culture remains in Manhattan:

Owners of the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, an 800-person-capacity restaurant that just opened on 49th Street, recruited ambitious women from pageant competitions across America as its first wave of bikini-clad employees. Those women have since been joined by 82 local waitresses.

The out-of-towners live in a dorm-like apartment on the Upper East Side — it’s “The Real World” meets “Gidget.”

“It is a great opportunity for me to get closer to my dreams of becoming a model,” said Jennifer Johnson, a 26-year-old who left her job teaching fourth grade in Dallas after winning the Miss Texas Hawaiian Tropic contest.

Her roommate and fellow Texan, Sarah Jo Lammers, a 24-year-old from Corpus Christi with a finance degree, bolted the business world to pursue a modeling dream here.

The Texans live with eight other recruits in two three-bedroom pads in an eight-story walkup on the Upper East Side owned by Dennis Riese, who owns the Hawaiian Tropic Zone with PM nightclub honcho Adam Hock.

Under the terms of their Hawaiian Tropic Zone deals, the models live rent free for six months, pay $200 for the seventh month, $400 the eighth and $600 a month until they leave. They also get discounted gym memberships and tanning, because they’re required to take part in both.

In return, they weave in and out between crowded tables as waitresses for the restaurant, welcoming guests, serving drinks and taking dinner orders while wearing Nicole Miller bikinis.

Every night is a beauty pageant. The waitresses strut their stuff twice a shift in front of the usual crowd of suit-clad bankers and brokers who quiet down and cast their paper ballots for the hottie they most admire.

The pageant winner gets a $100 bonus on top of $100 for each eight-hour shift and tips as high as $100 per table.

“I went out and bought shoes, which are everywhere in this city,” Johnson said, recalling a whopping gratuity from one admirer.