[1] The restaurant houses more than 50,000 clay smoking pipes, making it one of the largest collections in the world.[6] It was eventually purchased by radiation oncologist George Schwarz (1931–2016) and his wife, the artist Kiki Kogelnik.At the time, the couple already owned a number of other restaurants in the city, including Elephant and Castle, One Fifth and NoHo Star.With Kogelnik overseeing the design they ended up spending $1.4 million and three years restoring it before it reopened in 1981.[6] Patrons were given the opportunity to store fragile clay pipes at the restaurant so as to not risk breakage during transportation.