A Little History

How did Elephant & Castle come about? We have an interesting history and it’s a story we love telling…

It all starts with a young boy named George Schwartz. Having escaped to London from war-torn Germany as a young boy, George passed a certain tube station with a fairy tale name on his way to medical school each day, and fell in love with the name ‘Elephant & Castle’.

Once qualified, George moved to New York and began practising as an oncologist in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village. Every day during his long shifts at the hospital, George would lament about his poor lunchtime options.

Upon retirement, and after two decades of disappointing lunches, George decided to create somewhere where he could eat and enjoy everyday. And so Elephant & Castle opened in Greenwich Village, New York in 1973, right across the street from St. Vincent’s Hospital. He finally got to enjoy a life of eating everything he wanted to eat, in his very own restaurant with a special name from the past.