Sardi's Vincent Sardi Jr., Passes Away at 91

Vincent Sardi Jr., who owned and managed Sardi's restaurant, his father's theater-district landmark, for more than half a century and became, by wide agreement, the unofficial mayor of Broadway, died today at a hospital in Berlin, Vt. He was 91 and had lived nearby in Warren, Vt., since retiring in 1997.

Mr. Sardi inherited one of the world's most famous restaurants, a Broadway institution as central to the life of the theater as actors, agents and critics. Mr. Sardi was born July 23, 1915 in Manhattan and spent his early childhood in a railroad flat on West 56th Street, where his parents took in show-business boarders. In 1921, his father took over a basement restaurant in a brownstone at 246 West 44th Street.

He named it the Little Restaurant, but theater people called it Sardi's, and so it became.

Photos by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

Need more Broadway Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Spring season, discounts & more...