Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

President Trump — while berating his top generals about “losing” the war in Afghanistan — told a story about the renovation of the ‘21’ Club that was completely wrong in every detail, both the former owner and the former CEO of the landmark restaurant told me.

Marshall Cogan, who owned ‘21’ from 1985 to 1995, told me, “I have no idea what was in his head. I never have.”

Ken Aretsky, the restaurant’s CEO from 1986 to 1995, said, “Once again, Trump exaggerated another story.”

NBC News reported that Trump told his national security advisers that ‘21’ had shut its doors for a year and hired an expensive consultant to plan the renovation. The consultant’s only suggestion was a bigger kitchen.

“The clear message if you heard the story was: High-priced consultants, or high-priced anybody, expensive, supposedly big-brained people, but who are physically far from the source of the problem, often give you much worse advice than the supposedly low-ranking guys who are right there,” an unnamed official said.

But Aretsky told me there was no consultant and the renovation in 1987 took less than six months.

“I signed all the checks. We didn’t make any mistakes. The kitchens were 60 years old. We put in all new equipment and duct work.”

Cogan said, “There was no consultant. We had [architectural firm] Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.”

‘21’ was sold to Orient-Express Hotels in ’95, and Aretsky opened Patroon on East 46th Street the following year. Cogan said, “It was a wonderful transaction. We made a fair New England return.”

Trump was a regular at ‘21,’ but not such a frequent patron that he had his own table, Aretsky said. He and his family celebrated his victory there after the election.

“I’m proud of the job I did at ‘21.’ I got a great kick out of reading about Trump’s comparison of our renovation to the war in Afghanistan, but everything he said is wrong.”

Cogan said, “I think [Trump] has a psychological problem that only a therapist can define for you. I can’t.”