NYC Restaurateur Reveals Trump Was An Annoying Guest: ‘He Wasn’t Very Bright’

New York City restaurateur Keith McNally says President Donald Trump once frequently dined at his famed Balthazar eatery, and in his newly published memoir, “I Regret Almost Everything,” he recalled the former real estate tycoon behaving rather unscrupulously.

McNally told People in an interview Tuesday that Trump became a regular for two years after the restaurant opened in 1997. In a book excerpt published by the outlet, the proprietor recalled trying to rent some real estate from Trump — long before his polarizing pivot into politics.

“Even though I missed meeting Henry VIII by four hundred years, I did meet his modern-day equivalent, Donald Trump,” wrote McNally, per People. “Walking through a series of overdecorated spaces, we passed one that was noticeably less gaudy than the others.”

“I asked the Don if that restaurant space was also for rent,” he continued. “‘No, that one’s taken. I guaranteed it to someone else a month ago.’ … There was a pause before Trump added with a smile: ‘But just because it’s guaranteed doesn’t meant mean it’s locked in.’”

McNally ultimately decided not to lease the space; Trump’s apparent willingness to renege on his guarantee, meanwhile, presumably sounds familiar to former campaign sites and untold American voters who’ve experienced just how flimsy a Trump promise can be.

The president did, after all, refuse to acknowledge that he has a duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution — which he vowed to do as part of his presidential oath of office — when asked during his “Meet the Press” interview Sunday about due process rights and the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

McNally has worked in the restaurant business for decades and opened many famous New York eateries, including The Odeon, Pastis and Minetta Tavern. He famously once banned former CBS talk show host James Corden for berating Balthazar’s waitstaff.

The restaurateur slammed Corden as “a tiny Cretin of a man” in a viral Instagram post in 2022, and even though he buried the hatchet shortly after, McNally described Trump’s demeanor in the late 1990s more favorably Tuesday than he previously described Corden’s.

“Even then he seemed like a caricature of a rich, pushy New Yorker with diabolical taste,” McNally told People. “But he wasn’t offensive. In fact, he was very decent to me.”

“All the same, he wasn’t too bright,” he continued, “and if someone had told me that one day he’d be President I’d have thought they were certifiable.”

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