Mergers: Safeguarding a Symbol

• Share

(2 of 2)

Even so, it took nine months to work out the details to the satisfaction of both sides, or, as Bob Kriendler put it, "to have our cake and eat it too." The Kriendlers will continue to run the club as part of Ogden Development Corp., and their contract allows them to quit if Ogden does anything that they deem "injurious" to the place. Ablon has no intention of dimming the glitter. "Any change is too much in a restaurant like '21'," he says. "I won't get any free lunches."

Friends of the House. The inimitable Kriendler style, as a letter from management assured some 28,000 patrons, will indeed be maintained. With a nod to a headwaiter, the Kriendlers may send a tipsy Texas millionaire off to "Siberia," as the far end of the ground-floor dining room is called, or make sure that Joan-Crawford is served by her favorite waiters upstairs. Promising newcomers often strive to become "friends of the house," a status that brings such discreet services as credit and the assurance that a guest will be spared the embarrassment of encountering his former—or present —wife. Unwritten rules about decorum and dress are firmly enforced. Women are almost always barred for appearing in pants, culottes or over-revealing dresses, and Darryl Zanuck was turned away when he showed up wearing a turtleneck.

Despite such benevolent dictation, the "21" 's "friends" tend to regard the club as part of their lives. Last week a brief teletype message from a frequent guest in the upstairs dining room saluted the merger: "This insures that the great institution of '21' will remain intact." It was signed "Onassis."