Marvin Davis to Shut Down Shop at the Carnegie Deli

George Burns will have to find some other place to hold his 100th birthday party. The 98-year-old comedian had booked Carnegie Deli for the night of Jan. 20, 1996, but now owner Marvin Davis plans to close his 5-year-old Beverly Hills deli today at 3 p.m.

Carnegie chef and general manager Don Dickman confirmed that the restaurant would be closing. He said the staff has been informed.

Before Davis opened this branch of the popular New York Carnegie Deli, The Times reported he had a standing order at Century City’s Stage Deli for half a pound of lox, six bagels, a pint of cream cheese and four bags of potato chips to be delivered to his office at 7 each morning. But his real love was New York’s Carnegie Deli, where he was known to spend $1,000 at one crack. Davis finally got tired of schlepping deli from New York and decided it was time to open an L.A. branch.

“I think it’s like a lot of other restaurants. It’s a question of the economy, lack of tourism and different eating habits,” said Davis’ publicist, Lee Solters. “Carnegie is not the only one going out of business in Beverly Hills. Rodeo Drive now looks like a movie set.”

Cooks on the Move: Ciejai Harroway has quit Il Mito in Studio City to cook across the street at La Loggia on the south side of Ventura Boulevard. . . . Chef Andreas Kisler is now in charge of the kitchen at Wyndham Checkers hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Kisler, who last cooked at Beaurivage in Malibu, replaces Bill Valentine who replaced Thomas Keller who replaced Jerry Comfort. Comfort opened Checkers’ kitchen in 1989 after Elka Gilmore, who was originally hired as opening chef, decamped before the hotel even opened. . . . Chef Joe Venezia and general manager Carla Ugolini have left I Cugini in Santa Monica. The couple, who plan to marry, are negotiating to buy their own Italian restaurant: Il Boccacio on the Hermosa Beach Pier. . . . Anne and David Gingrass, the Spago alumni who opened Wolfgang Puck’s highly successful San Francisco restaurant Postrio, are moving on after five years. The couple, who will leave in December, plan to open their own spot in the city’s artsy South-of-Market district. No replacements have been named.