Bobby Ochs: From Bookie to Restaurateur to Author

Just before the pandemic in 2020, I got a call from Our Town’s then deputy editor David Noonan telling me that a Bobby Ochs wanted to get in touch with me. He had just finished a draft of his memoir and thought I could be interested in collaborating with him in editing and getting it published. He said Bobby told him that he knew me back in the paper’s early days when he owned Samantha restaurant on 1st Avenue and 78th Street, and I was married to Ed Kayatt, edited Our Town and wrote restaurant reviews.

Fade out. Fade in. Bobby and I got together. Over the next two years, and in September 2022, his memoir, “Bobby Ochs, Kid From the Bronx and Restaurant Partner to the Stars” was published. Bobby had a launch party, and Cindy Adams featured the book in her NY Post column.

The book, from Newman Springs Publishing, is told through a kaleidoscopic lens as Bobby reminisces and regales about his humble beginnings growing up in the Bronx, getting caught up in the law, owning restaurants with celebrities, and hobnobbing with the rich and famous.

This month, the paperback is being sold ($19.95) at the new Barnes & Noble on 87th St. and Third in their food section on the shelves with books written by Anthony Bourdain and Ruth Reichl, among others.

I asked Bobby to share a synopsis of his memoir for my East Side Observer column. In the last two years, he’s written several articles for Our Town about Manhattan restaurant life since the 70s and shared recipes from his restaurants. Here goes:

”I’ve owned and operated some of New York’s hottest restaurants with well-known celebrities as my partners. There was Mulholland Drive Cafe & Bobby O’s with Patrick Swayze. Nyla with Britney Spears. Peaches with Marla Maples (who was going through her divorce with Donald Trump). Twenty Twenty with Ashford & Simpson, to name a few.

”However, way before all my restaurants, and way before sports betting became legal, and fashionable, I was a bookie working for Benny Fein who was the biggest bookmaker in New York. That was back in the 1960’s. I got my gambling education starting as a 13 year old at College Rec Pool Room in the Bronx where I hung out with Hymie the Turk, Moise the Senator, Sonny the Genius, Irv the Tooth. They were real-life characters who seemed to come out of a Damon Runyon book. My career as a bookie came to an end with the help of the F.B.I.

”Sometime after those days John Travolta, who was fresh off making “Saturday Night Fever,” was interested in developing a movie based on my life. The working title for the movie was “The Bronx Bastard”. Unfortunately it never got made.

“At 17, I enlisted in the Army Reserves. After serving my active duty and attending monthly meetings at my Reserve Unit the 310th Military Police Battalion, President Kennedy recalled our unit back to active duty to face Khrushchev’s tanks in Berlin–the Berlin Crisis. Actually our unit never got to Berlin. Khrushchev blinked, and we spent a year at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where I co-wrote and starred in a musical comedy, spoofing the recall of the Reserves, called “The Second Time Around.” We toured all the Army Bases on the east coast for that year. The N.Y. Times Sunday Magazine Section gave me and the show a 3-page layout praising us.

”Right now, I’m just thrilled that my memoir, which is in paperback, is on the shelves at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side. B&N managers, Stella Williams and Ken Tan, were very helpful. I’m loving that my memoir, ”Bobby Ochs, Kid From the Bronx and Restaurant Partner to the Stars,” is near Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.“ In the book, he writes about the time I interviewed him for the Chef’s position when I was opening Peaches with Marla Maples. I didn’t hire him. He claims in his book that he didn’t want the job and he dumped the interview and referred to me as a knucklehead.

”Now we get to share a shelf at Barnes and Noble! Here, here!”

Bye bye Papaya King–I knew it was over. First the hoopla of hearing that Papaya King was staying in Yorkville not far from its old corner on 86th and 3rd. Euphoria. Then seeing the permits in the window at the new location on the opposite side of the street on 3rd between 86th and 87th Street and you could see the colorful Papaya King yellow color peeking out behind the covered storefront window. Still good. Then, then...Shopping carts covered in plastic blocked the doorway. Trash piled up. Hmm. Then came a clean up. No more carts. No more trash. Just clean, dark wood and a padlock covering what was to be Papaya’s storefront. But, alas, no Papaya King. All that’s left of that beloved neighborhood icon is its yellow framework at its original location. The Papaya King sign’s long gone. Franks from the old Sabrett’s carts won’t do it. Alas, I don’t see those dirty dog vendors around anymore either. I’ll have to miss them, too. And I do.