Wolfgang Zwiener, Waiter Who Built a Steakhouse Empire, Dies at 85

Wolfgang Zwiener, who immigrated to New York City from Germany in 1960, ferried thousands of hissing platters of porterhouse to the oak tables as a waiter at Peter Luger in Brooklyn and then founded his own empire of 35 steakhouses stretching from Park Avenue to the Philippines, died on Jan.23 at his home in Honolulu.

He was 85.His son Peter, who confirmed the death, said the cause was lung cancer.In his 39 years at Peter Luger, Mr.Zwiener (pronounced ZWEE-ner) was on his feet six days a week.

On Sundays and vacations, he liked to sleep on the beach.In retirement, it might have seemed that his only worry would be running out of sunscreen.Peter and his brother, Steven, had other ideas.

They talked him into opening Wolfgang’s Steakhouse, under the deep-blue ceiling tiles in the basement of the former Vanderbilt Hotel on lower Park Avenue.The porterhouse, the German potatoes, the apple strudel with schlag and a few more Peter Luger specialties came along.

So did two men he had waited tables with, now his business partners.As proprietor, Mr.Zwiener traded black bow ties and cotton aprons for suits, silk pocket squares and buffed leather shoes.

The crisp mustache, trimmed as straight and even above his upper lip as the teeth of a barbershop comb, stayed the same, apart from growing whiter.“He had a debonair and overwhelming presence,” said Mark Solasz, the vice president of Master Purveyors in the Bronx, the company that supplies most of Wolfgang’s meat in the United States and abroad.“He reminded me of an actor from the movies, but he was real life.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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