Lila Greene & Toby Brown aka RENTA YENTA ®

In February of 1973 before there was Food to Go,
Singing Telegrams,
a place to get anyone to entertain, find an elephant
bring a petting zoo to your house,
first there was RENTA YENTA.
Toby Brown and me…best friends.

We were to start an adventure that would become legendary.
Our husbands thought we were crazy
and the only thing with a prefix of
" Rent A"
was RENT A CAR and RENT A WRECK.
My husband could not believe us. He called us “Yentas,"
and Toby whose brain went to rhyme said,
“Why not Renta Yenta!”
We were so excited.
The logo became

ANYTHING YOU CAN'T DO WE CAN -
RENTA YENTA.

The concept of our business was so new it was a hard road
to get a Federal Trademark,
and thanks to the humor, brilliance and tenacity
of Robert Ashen,
we got a REGISTERED MARK.
This was quite an achievement. 

Sammy Davis, Jr. had a lot to do with our early notoriety.
He went on the Johnny Carson show and said we were tutoring himfor his
son's Bar Mitzvah. I said, “ Sam, it’s just bar-uch a-to a-do-noy.”
He said, “Lila,  how would you like to sing the 'Candy Man' at the Sands Hotel in Vegas?”

It is almost 35 years since we started Renta Yenta
and it was in 1973 that we wrote
ENTER RENTA YENTA,
a humorous account of two young housewives
with 8 children, and everything that can go wrong in business.

I lost my best friend Toby
and my beloved husband Mel.
You can read about them and Toby’s husband Jed
in our book that will make you laugh out loud!

I WILL BE 75 this year.  My five children have 8 children,
and Toby’s three children have 7 seven children.
Most of our success came from the extraordinary love between the families.
We had the best time, and I never laughed as much in my whole life.

Love,  Lila
aka Renta Yenta

A FEDERALLY REGISTERED TRADEMARK