Rainbow Room
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| The Rainbow Room | |
|---|---|
 The Rainbow Room in December 2004 |
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| Restaurant Information | |
| Established | 1934 |
| Street address | 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 65th Floor |
| City | New York City |
| State | New York |
| Postal code/ZIP | 10112 |
| Country | United States |
| Website | www.rainbowroom.com |
The Rainbow Room is an upscale restaurant and nightclub on the sixty-fifth floor of the GE Building in Rockefeller Center, Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
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[edit] Cuisine
The food is loosely northern Italian, and there are cocktails, wines, liqueurs, cognacs, and other drinks available.
[edit] Environment
The Rainbow Room features a revolving dance floor, a live big band orchestra, and a view of the New York City skyline. Private events are hosted in several banquet rooms. On New Year's Eve, for example, the price of admission includes caviar, truffles, champagne, and mixed drinks, and access to the Rainbow Room from dinner through breakfast the next morning. Admission to the 2007 New Year's Eve party was $1600.00 per person.[citation needed]
On the same floor of the GE building is The Rainbow Grill, a separate, somewhat less expensive restaurant with an à la carte menu and that has its own celebrations for main holidays.
[edit] History
The Rainbow Room first opened on October 3, 1934, and was originally conceived as a formal supper club, where the elite and influential of New York could gather to socialize over cocktails, dine on fine cuisine, and dance to the strains of legendary big bands on a revolving floor. Virginia Frymyer-Barnette, mother of Lady Shirley, cousin to both the HRH the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, used to sing and entertain dinner guests during the 1940's.
In 1974, David Rockefeller, the son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., commissioned a $25 million restoration and expansion of the Rainbow Room led by Joe Baum and Arthur Emil.
In 1998, the Rockefeller family passed operations of the facilities of the restaurant over to the Italian Cipriani S.A. family, founders of the renowned Harry's Bar in Venice, as well as several other restaurants in New York City.
The Ciprianis extensively remodeled the grill and fired all union workers. In 2003 Michael DiLeonardo, an associate of Peter Gotti, turned state's evidence against the accused mobster. In his testimony DiLeonardo said the Ciprianis gave $120,000 to the Gambino crime family to make union problems at the Rainbow Room disappear. The charges were never confirmed. [1]
In 2008, the Cipriani company filed a brief with the City of New York, requesting that the Rainbow Room be designated a historic landmark. The designation would prevent the Rainbow Room from being converted into office space.[2]
In 2009 the Cipirianis announced that they planned to close the grill although part would remain open as a bar and banquet hall. Cipriani's chief operating officer, blamed the "the current economic crisis in New York and around the world, on top of an ongoing dispute with our landlord." [3] Tishman Speyer said it intended to evict the Ciprianis unless they paid back rent.[4] The two sides settled the dispute, with the Cipriani's agreeing to give up possession of the restaurant and banquet hall on August 1, 2009. [5] The last night of dancing at the former hot spot took place on June 5, 2009 and the Grill will close its kitchen on Father's Day, June 21, 2009. [6]
[edit] In the Media
In his memoir, Kitchen Confidential, chef Anthony Bourdain wrote an entire chapter ("I Make My Bones") about his year and a half in the kitchen staff of the Rainbow Room, describing in detail - both good and bad - the working conditions in an extremely famous and busy restaurant and the numerous dealings normally kept invisible behind the kitchen doors.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Father and Son Restaurateurs in New York City Plead Guilty to Tax Evasion - New York Times - August 1, 2007
- ^ RAINBOW ROOM WILL SHUT EATERY -New York Post - January 3, 2009
- ^ RAINBOW ROOM WILL SHUT EATERY -New York Post - January 3, 2009
- ^ Rainbow Room’s Lease Terminated - New York Times - January 9, 2009
- ^ Cipriani Dining Empire Loses BlackRock, Rainbow Room
- ^ "The Rainbow Room Fades Away". Zagat.com. June 5, 2009. http://www.zagat.com/Blog/Detail.aspx?SNP=NNYC&SCID=40&BLGID=21229.
- Rainbowroom.com
- Article from The New York Times
- New York Times article about the Cipriani family and desire to designate Rainbow Room a Historic Landmark
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