Keens Steakhouse: The Clay Pipe Collection Hanging From the Ceiling

Keens Steakhouse is a restaurant opened in New York in 1885, famed for the tens of thousands of clay pipes hanging from its ceiling. Its significance to pipe history comes not from its kitchen but from having carried the custom of patrons leaving their own pipes in the restaurant's keeping into the twentieth century. Today the establishment is said to hold more than fifty thousand pipes, making it one of the largest hoards of clay pipes gathered under a single roof.

Founding and the Herald Square Years

Its founder, Albert Keen, ran the New York branch of the London-founded theatrical and literary club the Lambs Club before opening the restaurant. In 1885 he founded his own independent restaurant under his name. The establishment sat right in the heart of Herald Square, the era's theater district, and became a gathering place for actors, producers, journalists, and publishers. For a long time the restaurant admitted men only. In 1905 this rule went to court: the stage actress Lillie Langtry, refused entry, sued and won. Keens is located today at 72 West 36th Street and is regarded as the last surviving establishment from Herald Square's old theater district.

The Tradition of Pipes Left in Trust

The origin of the practice is traced to the inn culture of seventeenth-century England. In that era the long-stemmed clay pipe was not an item that could survive travel unscathed; because its thin stem broke at the smallest jolt, a regular customer preferred to leave his pipe on a shelf at the inn he frequented. Keens turned this habit into a regular service in the early twentieth century: a clerk kept the records, and assistants carried the pipes from shelf to table. It is reported that the pipes were imported from the Netherlands, and orders were placed in the tens of thousands every few years. The long-stemmed shape left on the shelf is itself the type known today as the churchwarden.

The names entered in the restaurant's pipe register passed ninety thousand. Among these names are said to be Theodore Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, J. P. Morgan, Douglas MacArthur, and "Buffalo Bill" Cody. The keeping of such a register brings Keens closer to an informal club than to a restaurant; for similar examples, see the entry the history of pipe clubs. How statesmen's pipes turned into keepsakes is a subject discussed in the entry Pipes gifted to American presidents.

Changes of Ownership

The restaurant was purchased by Herman Zuch in 1928 and remained in the same family's hands for a long time. Records indicate the establishment was closed by Zuch's son in 1977; four years later, in 1981, it reopened following an extensive renovation under George Schwarz and artist Kiki Kogelnik. In November 2024 it passed to the company of Texas businessman Tilman Fertitta.

Through all these changes of ownership, the pipe collection on the ceiling stayed in place. This continuity turns the collection from a mere fixture of the establishment into a kind of ledger: every pipe on the shelves is now a keepsake no one will ever come back to claim. Keens is regarded today as New York's second-oldest steakhouse, and its pipe collection stands as one of the few material traces left untouched through a century in which the city's smoking habits changed.