Word: ellman
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Simply arriving at a Larry Ellman restaurant can be a challenge to belief. A diner bound for Manhattan's Orangerie, for instance, can be picked up and delivered at the restaurant by a customer-service Citroën painted all over with orange blossoms. In the foyer he passes a concierge ready to order theater tick ets or call home to see if the wife and children are O.K. Seated on a black vinyl banquette beneath the leaves of a plastic orange tree, he swills down a triple martini poured from a Boodles bottle and served in a pitcher...
...when somebody writes an encyclopaedia of restaurants, the name Ellman may be close to Escoffier - and not just alphabetically. Auguste Escoffier left the world crepes suzette and peach Melba, but in his own way Larry Ell man is equally inventive. He has given the world the trompe l'oeil restaurant. His idea is to sell atmosphere and let atmosphere sell food...
Stagecoach Rides. Ellman's flair for this sort of thing, based on a canny assessment of the average diner, has made him one of the most successful restaurateurs in the U.S. Starting with a $2,000 investment in ten Coke machines in 1949, Ellman built up a thriving vending-machine and cafeteria business that he sold for $50,000 in 1958. He then sank the proceeds into a modest Man hattan steak house. He redecorated it in dude-ranch western, renamed it the Cattleman, promoted it fiercely with various gimmicks, including free stage coach rides for the kiddies...
...years ago, Ellman decided to expand. For $250,000 he bought control of Longchamps, a New York restaurant chain. He incorporated the Cattleman into the chain, and began buying other restaurants, concentrating on decor. His catering empire now includes 115 restaurants in seven states, and will gross an estimated $75 million this year...
...Greenwich Village, where the menu used to be sensible and the decor genteel. Now Charles has burst into a kind of bordello Byzantine, where a female harpist plucks away and the lighting is too dim to see the food (not that one would want to). So far, mercifully, Ellman has left Luchow's alone...