Celebrity chef Charlie Palmer is taking over the East 54th Street restaurant and turning it into his third Charlie Palmer Steak location, according the New York Post.
For a lot of people who've worked in finance for years, Rothmann's was a place where you could grab decently priced food and drinks and see a bunch of people you knew.
In other words, there are some sad people on The Street today.
One of those people is Jason DeSena Trennert, the Chief Investment Strategist at Strategas Research Partners LLC. He sent us his remarks on Rothmann's as his way of pouring one out for a solid establishment.
Jason DeSena Trennert
Jason DeSena Trennert, Strategas Research Partners LLC.
Among the greatest gifts bestowed upon me by family and my faith has been a constant reminder to count my blessings. It may seem morally incongruous to count among them the existence of a variety of saloons through the years that allowed me to enter, unaccompanied, and always find friends.
In Washington it was The Tombs. In my early years on Wall Street it was Harry's and Suspenders and O'Henry's. But for the past fifteen years it has been a wonderful steakhouse with a great bar named Rothmann's on 54th.
Those familiar with these pages may be familiar with the name. In many ways a good portion of the pathos of Wall Street and my insights and sins and laughs occurred within its four walls. It was a favorite among the Jefferies and ISI crowds and was almost always a lot of fun.
Sadly, once the lights dimmed last Friday, it was all over - the rumor being that its rent was raised to an impossibly high $100,000 a month. I'll miss Michael and Artie and Pat but I've lived in this town long enough not to brood over nostalgic feelings of loss and injury. Those guys will move on and inevitably there will be another restaurant or barroom that will take its place, albeit with more pretentious and expensive drinks and appetizers.
Still, it will likely be a reminder that Wall Street will always be a community of sorts, a place where the media's clichés about "investment bankers" will yield to the reality of flesh-and-blood human beings who worry about making mortgage and tuition payments and who commute to work. I will miss it.
If you've got a Rothmann's story, leave it in the comments.