Native New Yorker Charles Baum, the son of legendary restaurateur Joe Baum, grew up immersed in the notoriously all-consuming hospitality industry. After serving as general manager at Manhattan's famed Rainbow Room and becoming a partner in the tragically late-great Windows on the World, the accomplished avocational photographer and self-described "incorrigible collector of restaurant ephemera of all kinds" co-founded, with Barbara McMahon, Cool Culinaria, an online repository that indulges his passion for food and drink history, lore, menus, and more.