Elaine's


Elaine's was a bar and restaurant in New York City that existed from 1963 to 2011. It was frequented by many celebrities, especially actors and authors. It was established and owned by, and named after, Elaine Kaufman, who was indelibly associated with the restaurant; Elaine's shut down several months after Kaufman died.
Elaine's was located on the Upper East Side, near the corner of 2nd Avenue and East 88th Street in Manhattan.

History

Established in 1963, Elaine's is famed both for the writers and other prominent New Yorkers such as
Nelson W. Aldrich Jr.,
Woody Allen,
Noel Behn,
Candace Bushnell,
William J. Bratton,
Paul Desmond,
Jared Faber,
Mia Farrow,
Clay Felker,
Helen Frankenthaler,
Joseph Heller,
Peter Maas,
Norman Mailer,
Robert Motherwell,
Chris Noth,
George Plimpton,
Mario Puzo,
Sally Quinn,
Daniel Simone,
Mark Simone,
Gay Talese,
Tom Wolfe
and Sidney Zion, who had been regulars over the years, and for its late chain-smoking namesake and proprietress Elaine Kaufman, who ran the restaurant for over four decades. Other visitors to the establishment included Leonard Bernstein, Michael Caine, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, New Jersey attorney Arthur Maurello and his wife Irene, Luciano Pavarotti, Eli Wallach and Elaine Stritch, who served as bartender in 1964.
The restaurant was noted for its Oscar night, where celebrities and visiting Hollywood stars congregated to watch the Academy Awards ceremony.
Kaufman was known for not mincing her words, for booting less-favored customers to seat new arrivals and for forbidding hamburgers to be served in her restaurant. She was once arrested after a physical altercation with a visiting Texan. Elaine also once had a fist fight with the actress Tara Tyson and then claimed that the thespian had set her ablaze with a lit cigarette. She also once chased away the notorious paparazzo Ron Galella by hurling two garbage can lids at him and exclaiming, "Beat it, creep... you're bothering my customers".

In culture

immortalized the establishment in his song "Big Shot", supposedly about a date gone wrong which included a stop at the eatery, with the lyrics, "They were all impressed with your Halston dress and the people that you knew at Elaine's".
The opening dinner scene from Woody Allen's Manhattan was filmed at the restaurant, as was a scene from his later work Celebrity. There is a short sequence in the film Morning Glory of Elaine Kaufman herself at the bar of Elaine's. In the hit comedy Big Business, to divert a mismatched set of twins from upsetting an important shareholder vote, Midler's alter-ego character offers to take them to Elaine's.
In the 2008 American television miniseries The Looming Tower, the main character John O'Neill, played by Jeff Daniels, is frequently seen at Elaine's. The character of Elaine is played by actress Barbara Rosenblat in episodes 1 and 6.
On May 10, 2014, The Moth Radio Hour featured old pre-recorded monologues about experiences they'd had at Elaine's by George Plimpton and Plimpton's friend José Torres.
In his autobiography Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs, television personality and former MTV video jockey Dave Holmes stated that he lived in an apartment above Elaine's when he moved to New York City in 1994.
Until its closing, Elaine's was a frequent dinner spot in the Stuart Woods's novel series featuring Stone Barrington, wherein during that time the author always began the first paragraph with "Elaine's. Late".
The late bar and restaurant is the subject of A.E. Hotchner's 2013 volume "Everybody's Coming to Elaines: Forty Years of Movie Stars, All-Stars, Literary Lions, Financial Scions, Top Cops, Politicians, and Power Brokers at the Legendary Hot Spot".
Elaine's was a favorite meeting and dining spot for Stone Barrington and Dino Bacchetti in the Stone Barrington series written by Stuart Woods.

Smoking ban

In 2003, New York City banned smoking in restaurants. Kaufman claimed to have quit smoking several years earlier but was unhappy about her customers' being forced to forgo tobacco at their seats.

Closing

Elaine Kaufman died from Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pulmonary hypertension on December 3, 2010, aged 81. Kaufman willed the establishment to longtime manager Diane Becker. Becker shut down the restaurant soon thereafter; it closed on May 26, 2011. Becker later explained her reason for closing the restaurant: "The truth is, there is no Elaine’s without Elaine...the business is just not there without Elaine."

Legacy

In late 2013, The Writing Room, owned by Michael and Susy Glick, proprietors of the nearby boîte, Parlor Steak & Fish and BB&R, opened its doors in Elaine's old space, featuring the prior restaurant's original famed canopy.