Established in 1963,[2] Elaine's was famed both for its chain-smoking namesake and proprietress Elaine Kaufman, who ran the restaurant for over four decades, as well as the numerous writers and other prominent New Yorkers who were regular patrons there, including Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., Woody Allen, Noel Behn, Candace Bushnell, William J. Bratton, Paul Desmond, Joan Didion, Jared Faber, Mia Farrow, Clay Felker, Helen Frankenthaler, Joseph Heller, Jill Krementz, Peter Maas, Norman Mailer, Robert Motherwell, George Plimpton, Mario Puzo, Sally Quinn, Daniel Simone, Kurt Vonnegut, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Bobby Zarem and Sidney Zion.

Other visitors to the establishment included Alan Alda, Lucille Ball, Leonard Bernstein, Michael Caine, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson, Don Rickles, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Luciano Pavarotti, Eli Wallach and Elaine Stritch, who served as bartender in 1964.

[citation needed] Kaufman had a reputation for not mincing words, for booting less-favored customers to seat new arrivals and forbidding hamburgers to be served.

[6] Billy Joel immortalized the establishment in his song "Big Shot" (1978), with the lyrics, "They were all impressed with your Halston dress and the people that you knew at Elaine's".

In the 2018 American television miniseries The Looming Tower, the main character John O'Neill, played by Jeff Daniels, is frequently seen at Elaine's.

Hotchner's 2013 volume "Everybody's Coming to Elaines: Forty Years of Movie Stars, All-Stars, Literary Lions, Financial Scions, Top Cops, Politicians, and Power Brokers at the Legendary Hot Spot".