In the spring of 1976, a little-known but well-connected retail executive named Glenn Bernbaum opened Mortimer’s on Lexington Avenue at East 75th Street. At the time, Glenn was president of the Custom Shop, which sold made-to-measure men’s shirts, and it was said the restaurant’s name was in homage to the chain’s founder, Mortimer Levitt. On the other hand, there were those who said Glenn had borrowed the name from the storied high-WASP, old-money Mortimer family, many of whose members would become regulars at what quickly metamorphosed into Upper East Side society’s lunch-and-dinner canteen.
Glenn himself was part of a high-powered circle of “confirmed bachelors,” as gay men were referred to in those days, including the jewelry designer Kenny Jay Lane, the fashion designer Bill Blass, the department-store heir Steven Kaufmann, and the real-estate heir Jerry Zipkin, for whom Women’s Wear Daily coined the term “walker,” referring to the men who escorted society ladies to charity balls and dinner parties when their husbands were unavailable (or unwilling).
