Ken Aretsky

Aretsky is a graduate of C.W. Post College. He has been married three times.^[3] He has at least four children,^[2] including daughter Beth, a Culinary Institute of America chef,^[4] and son Gene, a restaurant manager.^[5]

Aretsky has been described as “one of New York’s most accomplished restaurateurs of the last thirty years.”^[6] He opened his first restaurant, Truman's, in Roslyn, New York on Long Island in 1971,^[7] after which he briefly worked as a stockbroker.^[2] It was inspired by Maxwell's Plum.

On the Upper East Side, he opened the Oren & Aretsky bar during the 1980s. He bought the shuttered Christ Cella steakhouse in August 1995,^[8] managed by son, Gene since about 2005,^[5] and which he later morphed into Aretsky’s Patroon Restaurant and Rooftop Bar in 2019.^[9][5] In 1996,he opened the Butterfield 81 bistro, where his daughter, Beth, was a chef.^[4] He and Anne Rosenzweig also launched Arcadia, which closed in 1997.^[2][10][11] He was president and General Manager of the 21 Club, from 1987 until 1995.^[2]