Post #163019 by Gramcrkr on Thu, Jun 2, 2005 9:49 AM

I worked at the Tiki Kai as a waitress in 1966. Harry Jew was the owner, Gordon the manager, Lou the Maitre'd, Linda the Hostess, Mike the bartender, Speedy the back up bartender, Tommy the Chef. I left Tiki Kai when I married the Chef Tommy Jung.

Harry had another Tiki Kai in Albuquerqe, which is where he spent most of his time. That club had Topless waitresses which was always a great conversational piece amonst the men as they were always kidding around that our Club should do the same. Which did not happen.

We had a a lot of entertainers for our evening shows. The Biggest draw was Ernie Menehune who in my book was far greater than Don Ho ever thought of being. Ernie spent a lot of his time in Vegas entertaining when he wasn't at our place. His wife at the time, Bobbi, knew almost everyone of the Who's Who in town. She was a great PR agent for him.

I have a lot of wonderful memories of Tiki Kai. One of my memories was the Sunday evening when we closed down and decided to have a private Employees Only party. We were to have Chinese Food & Spaghetti. This came about as Lou the Maitre'd was Italian and we had been talking of how it really was the Chinese who gave us Spaghetti & not Italy. So it was decided.

Lou was assigned to prepare the Chinese Food and Larry Lee a Chinese gentleman who managed the place for a short time prepared the spaghetti. I believe we were to vote for which we liked best. Both were very Good!

Another memory was of my Busboy George, who later became my step-son. One evening he went to pick up a customer's plate & the fork fell into the man's lap. I apologized & offered to pay for the cleaning bill. I helped him finish clearing the table & asked George to get them some coffee. George promptly missed the cup & poured hot coffee into the gentleman's lap. Needless to say there was no tip from that table that evening.

Would love to find out if any of the "old" gang is still around. George has found Ernie in Arizona & has his phone number. He is going to try to get copies of all of his music that has been turned into CD's. He tells me Ernie is now 80 years old & still entertaining & his voice is as good as ever. Any one interested in contacting Ernie can e-mail me @ [email protected].
Thanks for Listening, Pat :)

[ Edited by: Gramcrkr on 2005-06-02 09:53 ]