Bernard "Toots" Shor (May 6, 1903 – January 23, 1977) was best known as the proprietor of a legendary saloon and restaurant, Toots Shor's Restaurant, in Manhattan. He ran three establishments under that name, but his first – and most renowned – was located at 51 West 51st Street. He was known as a saloonkeeper, friend, and confidant to some of New York's biggest celebrities during that era.
Early life
Shor was born in Philadelphia to Orthodox Jewish parents – his father of Austrian descent from Germany and his mother from Russia. He and his two older sisters were raised in a home above the family candy store in South Philadelphia. When Shor was 15 years old, his mother was killed by the driver of an automobile while she sat on the stoop outside their home. His father committed suicide five years later. Shor attended the Drexel Institute of Technology and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania before working as a traveling shirt-and-underwear salesman.
First restaurant
Shor went to New York City in 1930 and found employment as a bouncer at the Five O'Clock Club, which served as his introduction to celebrities. He later worked at several other nightspots: The Napoleon Club, Lahiff's Tavern, the Ball & Chain, the Madison Royale, and Leon & Eddie's. He became a man about town in Manhattan after opening his own restaurant, Toots Shor's, in 1940 at 51 West 51st Street with funding from Leo Justin, a New Jersey theater owner, who put up half of the $100,000 cost. While the food there was known to be "nuttin' fancy" – standard American, sports-bar fare such as shrimp cocktail, steak, baked potato—the establishment became well known for who frequented it, and Shor’s interactions with them. The restaurant eventually expanded into 53 and 55 West 51st Street, doubling the size of the tavern, adding upstairs banquet rooms and a private projection room.
Shor was a raconteur and a master of the "needle," jibes or quips directed at the famous. Celebrity alone was not enough to receive first-class service in Shor's restaurant. According to David Halberstam in his book The Summer of '49, guests had to observe the unwritten "code" which prevailed in Shor's establishment. Charlie Chaplin, who was not privy to that code, was made to wait in line. When Chaplin complained, Shor told him to entertain the others who were waiting in line. One day, Hollywood boss Louis B. Mayer complained about waiting twenty minutes for a table and said, "I trust the food will be worth all that waiting." Shor replied: "It'll be better'n some of your crummy pictures I stood in line for." Once while standing outside his restaurant with Frank Sinatra and a crowd of screaming fans being held back by police, Toots pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket and said to Frank, "Here, kid, go across the street and buy me a paper." At the opera with friends during the intermission Toots declared, "I bet I'm the only bum in this joint that doesn't know how this thing ends."
In one incident, Shor outdrank comedian Jackie Gleason, famously leaving Gleason on the floor to prove the point. (At Toots' funeral, the coffin had a spray of red roses with a card which read, "Save a Table for 2," signed by Gleason.)
Shor cultivated his celebrity following by giving them unqualified admiration, loyal friendship, and a kind of happy, boozy, old-fashioned male privacy. Those whom Shor really liked were called "crum-bums". Shor reputedly said that he didn't care if he was a millionaire–so long as he could live like one.
Second restaurant
In September 1958, Shor sold the lease for his 51st Street restaurant for $1.5 million to William Zeckendorf but had until June 1959 to leave. In 1960, he opened at a new location at 33 West 52nd Street and tried to emulate the decor and atmosphere of the original. The then–Chief Justice, Earl Warren, considered Toots one of his closest friends. "The Chief" showed up to be photographed with a shovel full of dirt when Toots broke ground on Toots' 52nd street "joint".
Third restaurant
In 1971, authorities padlocked the doors of the 52nd Street restaurant for nonpayment of federal, state, and local taxes totaling $269,516. He vowed to open again in three weeks, but 18 months passed before his restaurant at 5 East 54th Street opened. For a variety of reasons, however, his famous clientele never returned with their former regularity.