Mike's Place

"Everyone has the idea that it's a good chef that makes a restaurant. I know of no greater fallacy. A restaurant is only as good as its owner's personality."

The framer of this apothegm is the proprietor of both a good restaurant and an unusual personality. He is the self-styled Prince Michael Alexandrovitch Dmitry Obolensky Romanoff, once a Brooklyn-born orphan boy named Harry Gerguson, who spent half his life amiably panhandling the rich of two continents. But in Hollywood, where Mike Romanoff settled after being immortalized in a five-part New Yorker profile, he finally cashed in on the fact that he is one of the few genuine, 24-carat phonies in a city where thin plating has often been known to pose for the real thing.

In the ten years since his friends John Hay ("Jock") Whitney, Darryl Zanuck, the late Robert Benchley and others lent him $7,500 to go into business, Romanoff's restaurant has become much more than just a place to eat good food. There, Hollywood has clinched its big deals, dreamed its Technicolored dreams, made and broken careers. With its "dress circle" of favored dining booths, Romanoff's is a precise measuring stick of whether a star is rising or falling. Waiting for a table at Romanoff's is a good indication that a star has faded.

Low Morale. Recently, however, Romanoff's has fallen victim to its own social standards. Profits, which hit a peak of $87,000 seven years ago, have slipped. This year, Romanoff expects to net only $16,000, chiefly because of rising overhead and the fact that bar revenues, which once accounted for 50% of the gross, have tumbled. The reason: no one wants to drink at the bar and be branded a nobody. That is particularly true when choice empty tables are marked "reserved." Says Mike: "It's very bad for the morale for one to walk past those empty booths and be shunted to a rear table. Customers are affronted."

Last week, in recognition of this state of affairs, Mike Romanoff gathered some of his friends together for a historic event. On a vacant lot in Beverly Hills, Ethel Barrymore, Clark Gable, Ann Miller, Ronald Colman and scores of other stars watched as Mike laid the cornerstone for a new restaurant.

No Scornful Stares. The new Romanoff's, due to open in February, will have some improvements. Its bar will be in a separate room, away from the scornful stares of the dress circle, so that customers can take their drinks on the hoof without feeling they are social outcasts. And to help pay the overhead, Mike's new place will have a private banquet room, a liquor store and a gift shop. Explained Mike grandly: "I decided to establish a Romanoff Center. I felt I was entitled to it if the Rockefellers were."

To build his new restaurant, Mike is raising $200,000 from some of the same friends who started him in business. Apparently they share his conviction that the same old crowd will still flock to the new Romanoff's. Says Mike: "I'm very good for a lot of people. They feel they are better than I, and people have a desire to feel they are better than someone else. Resentment? I accept it as I do the weather."

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