New York’s ‘21’ Club Closes Its Doors During Pandemic After 90 Years Of Gastronomic History

The closure of ’21’ Club is an enormous loss for New York City and American gastronomy. Unless the owners can somehow re-purpose the place without ruining it, this is as stunning a closure as that of Le Cirque, Lüchow’s, Windows on the World, the original Four Seasons, Mamma Leone’s, Palm and a very few others. The legends of  ‘21’ are legion, with a speakeasy past, a raffish reputation, a snobbish regard and fabulous artwork. Before it closed, it was a better and far more congenial restaurant than ever in its history. I hope it is not all gone with the wind.

Of all the historic restaurants in New York City, like Delmonico’s, which was the first fine dining restaurant to open in America, back in 1831, and Barbetta, still in the same Italian family since 1906, none has had the storied past of `21’ Club. I heartily recommend going to the Club’s website for history, anecdotes, and hilarious happenings over the past eight decades in business, including the time Robert Benchley came in out of the rain and quipped, “Get me out of this wet coat and into a dry martini.” So many movies and TV shows have filmed at `21′ Club, including “The Sweet Smell of Success,” “Wall Street,” and, recently, “Sex in the City.

 A celebrated clientele strutted their power within its stucco walls, including almost every U.S. President, along with stars like Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles, Lauren Bacall, Ernest Hemingway, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner.  Several of them had bronze plaques on the wall above “their” tables. But by the 1970s, `21’ was wheezing, though keeping up its exclusive image—a doorman was quoted in New York magazine as saying about newcomers: “Why should I be nice to them? I don’t know these people.”

The regulars call it “The Numbers.” Occasional visitors call it just “21.” And out-of-towners call it The `21′ Club. Such nuances used to matter in this bastion of New York sophistication, once a speakeasy, then a restaurant that catered to a crowd composed of industry titans, Broadway and Hollywood actors, Old Money, and, over time, the Nouveau Riche. Its exclusivity was based on longtime alliances dating back to Prohibition days when Charlie Berns and Jack Kriendler ran it with a wink in one eye and another that sized up the incoming clientele. To get your corporate model airplane or truck hung from the ceiling of the bar was as good as getting a seat on the Stock Exchange.  (Look for models of JFK’s PT-109 and Bill Clinton’s Air Force One, a baseball bat from Willie Mays, tennis racquets from Chris Evert and John McEnroe and golf clubs from Jack Nicklaus.)   

`21′ was always an antidote to trendiness. For decades good food never got in the way of having a good time, and anyone who questioned his bill obviously didn’t have a house account.

     Over the past 25 years, however, successive new owners not only spruced up a very threadbare interior—cleaning the Remington statues and paintings, installing the superb graphic art of the 1930s and 1940s, and reconditioning a kitchen with modern technology. Some very notable chefs came and went, but none lasted very long in an environment where the preferences of the clientele—and a union staff— dictated what stayed on the menu, and often the improvement of a dish with better ingredients and attention to cooking was met with disbelief by those who had grown used to the mediocrity of the cooking.

     Nevertheless, `21′ has not only persevered after the death of Charlie Berns in 2006,  and the retirement of longtime manager Bruce Snyder, retaining its traditional clientele while attracting at least two younger generations of people who came here either as legacy regulars or to partake of a Gotham icon as authentic as the Rockefeller Center skating rink, the Washington Square Arch and the Great Hall of Grand Central Terminal.

I was always giddy at the prospect of going to ‘21’ to sit in the Bar Room, arrayed with those hanging toys, happy to see the place packed with young and old, happy to see the starched red-and-white checkered tablecloths, and happy to see a menu that kept links to `21’s traditions while bringing dishes into the 21st century. It was always a pleasure to be greeted at the host’s station by the evergreen gentleman Shaker Naini, as he has for 42 years.  

The menu was always expensive, but, a la carte, one could eat there for under $100, which is what you’d pay at fine competitors like Gotham Bar & Grill, The Four Seasons and Gramercy Tavern, and far less than you would at La Grenouille or  Del Posto. The wine cellar, hidden since Prohibition behind a massive brick wall, is one of the finest in the city.

The fact that `21’ survived and prospered is testament to a lot of hard work made to look effortless.  Dining there you became part of its continuing history.  Walking in off the street, seeing the famous iron gates and the jockey statues on the staircase, is still as heartwarming as seeing the spire of the Empire State Building.  If, as the song “New York New York” goes, you really want to “be a part of it,” then dinner at `21’ was a good place to start.