During its heyday, The Cattleman attracted media attention as an early example of a theme restaurant, and it became the inspirational basis for the musical Pump Boys and Dinettes.

In his twenties,[2] Larry Ellman became the New York distributor for Automatique, a Danish firm that manufactured Wittenborg brand food-vending machines "similar in appearance and operation to the Automat.

It is the Cattleman, at Lexington Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, a restaurant and saloon designed to create the atmosphere of nineteenth-century San Francisco.

... Every evening from 9 o'clock to 2 A.M., Mr. Farrell, a night-club entertainer for thirty years, sits at the piano in a dimly lit corner ... and tries to whip the customers into a singing frame of mind.

The customers who sit at cozily grouped tables and order their steaks and drinks from waiters wearing colored vests, string ties and garters on their sleeves can stare at a large painting of a nude that hangs on one wall, or guess the age and authenticity of the rifles and longhorns that decorate the long, mirrored bar.

"[11] Ellman announced in 1997 that he and partners Edward Buyes and William Opper planned to recreate The Cattleman at 1241 Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains, New York, in November of that year.

... Mark and I were unemployed and happy to take a job playing five nights a week in the Cattleman Lounge, attached to a restaurant on one of the darker blocks west of Grand Central.

Our mission was to play country standards to entertain the "tired businessman" who had come for the drinks, the steaks, and the waitresses in classic Western saloon girl attire.