Post #109167 by thejab on Thu, Aug 19, 2004 11:38 AM

Last weekend I was visiting friends in Sacramento and they mentioned seeing an old bar out in the sticks north of Sacramento with a tiki in the signage. Naturally, I suggested we drive up there to investigate further. So, on Sunday we headed up Hwy. 45 to the town of Grimes (about an hour North. of Sacramento and 10 minutes East of I-5). The bar called the Islander sits on the main intersection in town. Unfortunately, it was closed. We asked some locals and they said it would probably open at around 4 or 5. I asked what it was like inside (tropical?) and they said it's just an average bar. We couldn't wait around for 3 hours so we left.

On Monday I called the bar and spoke with a grumpy woman on the phone who confirmed that it is not tropical or Polynesian inside. I asked her if the sign could have been originally at the Islander in Stockton and she the sign had been there when she started working at the bar over 20 years ago. Didn't the Islander close over 20 years ago? Perhaps the sign was taken from the Islander in Stockton when it closed.

(I posted this info in Locating Tiki as well.)

On Friday I got a chance to visit the Eastern Empire and have some delicious Chinese Food and a good Suffering Bastard in a surfer girl mug.

We also investigated a bar called the Pre-Flite Lounge that is located downtown near the Macy's mall complex at 513 L St. My Sacto friend said that in the 60s when the airport was just a couple of runways, people flying in an out of Sacramento would visit the travel agencies and airline offices (in a small indoor mall which is now a part of the larger mall built in the 90s) and then visit the bar to wait for a bus to take them to the airport.

If you start on L st. where Morton's of Chicago is located, go up the stairs and into the older section of the mall and look up to see some nice 60s styling in the oval-shaped ceiling openings. Go back outside and the bar is inside a building on the bottom floor, just below street level. We could see the front door to the bar inside but the doors to the building were locked on Sunday, and the bar was closed. The doors to the bar are 60s modern abstractly carved wood. There are also doors to the bar from the driveway that goes between the front building and the mall, which is where airline passengers got picked up at the bar to be whisked off to the airport in a pleasantly indebriated state.

If any Sacto or Modesto TC members feel like an adventure perhaps you could check out the Pre-Flite Lounge or the Islander in Grimes, because I'm real curious about what they look like inside.

I hope everyone had a great International Tiki Day. I wish I could have been at Al and Shelley's but I still enjoyed visiting with my old friends in Sac.

[ Edited by: thejab 2006-07-26 15:28 ]