Ernie Byfield

Who was Ernie Byfield?

Ernest Lessing "Ernie" Byfield was a hotelier and restaurateur from the 1930s through the 1950s in Chicago, Illinois. Byfield operated the Hotel Sherman Co., including the Ambassador East and West, the Sherman, the Fort Dearborn and the Drake Hotels and The Pump Room and College Inn restaurants.

Byfield is most famous as the owner of The Pump Room, a restaurant and bar frequented by the luminaries of the stage and screen from the 1930s to present. The Pump Room was the preferred stopping off point in Chicago for celebrities changing trains in Chicago while travelling between New York and Los Angeles. Stage and screen stars of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s would be invited to join Byfield in Booth 1 at the restaurant and would often boast to their friends that they had "lunched with Ernie" while they were in Chicago. Byfield founded what has been described as the most famous restaurant in Chicago and was known for bringing theatrics to the restaurant business. The number of flambé dishes served by his restaurant, The Pump Room, was noted and started a trend in the post-war United States.

A hotelman must be a master of opposites.