Toots Shor

Toots Shor

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 different 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 confidante to some of New York's biggest celebrities during that era.

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 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.

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 great man about town in Manhattan after opening his own restaurant at 51 West 51st Street. While the food at Toots Shor's Restaurant 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 there and the manner in which Shor interacted with them.

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: Jackie Gleason.)

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 while looking at a crowd of screaming fans being held back by police, Toots reached in his pocket, pulled out a dollar bill and said to Frank, "Here kid go across the street and by 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."

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.