The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-05-25

Now none of this co untry club atmosphere would be unusual at this particular restaurant, were not Jacques Bustanoby its propri- etor.
 For that was a name to con- jure with in the mauve days of New York when Rector's Reisen- weber's, Delmonico's, Churchill's and Shanley's were the cafes of gilded legend. Jacques Bustanoby conducted two or three places during that era, and all were well known to any playboy or playgirl with enough money to burn, or to any epicure who demanded the best in cuisine.
 TOP-NOTCHER
 CLIENTELE
 He ran the first cafe with a floor show, on the present site of the Flatiron Building. He was the impresario of the old, elegant night club in the Beaux Arts. It was up on the tenth floor and there he gave Texas Guinan her first job in New York, but it was long after his regime that she greeted the human lollipops with her notorious Hello, sucker!' He was the first restauranteur who demanded the most formal attire of his guests at supper, risking the animosity of many. But, contrar- fly he doubled his business after that sartorial decree.
 It was prohibition that drove him out. Like other honorable restauranteurs, he declined to wage criminal war upon the gov- ernment from behind 8 peephole. So he gave up, after having per- sonally servcd Lillian Russell, An- na Held, Diamond Jim Brady, David Belasco, Charles Frohman, John Drew, Ethel Barrymore, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Scotti and Caruso, Buffalo Bill, Paderewski, Kreisler, Victor Herbert among hundreds of other celebrities.
 The revenue men raided his place, after others took it over, at intervals of every four weeks un- til it was driven into the cellar. OLD FOLKS
 NOT HOME
 Bustanoby sulked and brooded until repeal. He retired to a rrls- tic home at Teaneck, N. J., raised flock of dogs and lived the life of country gentleman. But when Volsteadism was overthrown and it became legal to add a palatable hooker of sherry to a bowl of green turtle soup, he couldn't re- sist the temptation. There was talk of an airport in Teaneck and of 8 new golf course, and prodded by those reports, Bustanoby open- ed lavish restaurant and waited for his old friends from mauve Manhattan to drive over.
 They didn't. The old soaks had grown too indolent to travel to the other side of the Hudson River, even for a Bustanoby meal than which, at its best, there is no better. And the young folk only knew "Bustanoby" as name mentioned to them, with a smack of the lips, by their elders. Be- sides, the airport never material ized and neither did the golf course and somewhat broken hearted Jacques quit. He returned to canine breeding, he wrote his memoirs of those good, old days for a publisher who once seemed vaguely interested and rejected all suggestions that he open a new restaurant in New York. Finally, he sold out in Teaneck and moved to Long Island, just to forget about 1t.
 vICTUALS TRIUMPHANT
 But the old urge returned. He installed the family upstairs and converted the living room, bed- room, sun parlor and porch into a cocktail bar, restaurant, lobby and kitchen, respectively. He no long, CT solicited the trade of his with cred New York patronage.
 He stuffed away the starched shirt, wing tie and collar and waited at the door in a pair of slacks and a pull-over. And when the suburbanites came, he pre- pared his succulent sauces, his Gallic delicacies and his fancy drink connections, in that infor- nal garb. A modest sign pro- claimed that he was Jacques Bus tanoby, but it was not the name, but the cuisine that was impress sive to the good folk of Little