Waiting on Warhol

Elaine’s

1703 Second Ave. at 88th St.
212-534-8103

Opened: 1963

That was then: When Elaine Kaufman opened her eponymous, 13-table eatery on an unfashionable block east of Lexington, she didn’t need to attract the well-heeled locals from down the street, so she brought the off-Broadway regulars from the downtown restaurant where she had previously waited tables. The restaurant became a theater-crowd hangout and regular gossip-column fodder, and soon enough stars of all stripes followed. Whether it was composer David Rose (who was married to Judy Garland) taking the restaurant’s noted veal chops to go—he brought them home to California—or Leonard Bernstein hanging out with Mike Nichols and Jacqueline Onassis, Elaine’s was the place to be for supping with the stars.

Pictured: Williams Styron and Mike Wallace, 1995