Post #328764 by TabooDan on Tue, Aug 28, 2007 11:22 PM

Here's a bit of a long story so make sure you have a drink or something!
To back up a little regarding the Tropic Isle and how I found out about it, I gotta start from the beginning.
I began doing some investigative work into local Tiki Restaurants that were once here in BC so I could put the information on our website, (Currently under construction and not up to date) http://www.tabootiki.com.

I knew that there was a restaurant in Surrey BC, called the Tropic Isle as I had been able to find a mug in a local thrift store of a Tiki (Orchids Green Jewel Eyed style)with the name on the back. This was about 7 years ago and never really had the time to research it more. This mug was the only mug I had found from this restaurant until about a year ago when I found a rare coconut mug with the same Tropic Isle on it. Now I gotta find out about this place! As the years passed, I got more and more interested in the local Tiki themed restaurants that were once here. Meeting and talking to people was really the only way to dig up evidence.

Fueled by all the great stories right here on TC of other members finding and having Tiki right in their own backyards, I began the search. Of course there was the Vancouver Trader Vic's and the famous Waldorf Hotel, but there were also tales of other fine establishments. Not having been the right age to be into Tiki in it's heyday, I missed the opportunity to visit alot of these places (I will be adding other restaurants I have learned about here on TC in later posts.).

I knew that somewhere in Surrey there was once a Hawaiian themed Restaurant called the Tropic Isle. I talked to our ceramic mold maker who had done the molds that I had discussed in my previous post because he has been around for so long. Sure enough, he remembers doing mugs for the Tropic Isle but didn't really remember exactly where it was (He is about 84 years old now). He did say that there was a Tiki Restaurant in Whalley, a suburb of Surrey, during the 1980's but he couldn't nail down the exact location.

I wasnt sure exactly where to start hunting as I hadn't specifically gone looking for a long closed establishment before. When I was a kid, I seemed to remember a tropical or beach themed type of restaurant/diner on the way out to White Rock which is a local beach community. I figured what better place to start my investigation so I went there to see what I could find. The building where I had remembered this place had just been recently knocked down to allow for new housing. Bummer, I thought. I figured I would ask a neighbor at an older looking property to see if they happened to remember anything. I knocked on the perfect person as they had lived in the area since the late 1940's! Unfortunately, there was nothing that she could remember in that specific area by her home.

She did however, send me not far down the road to the Highway to check on an old Supper Club that used to be there from the 1940's to the early 1980's. It had changed names and styles of restaurants over the years but the people that owned the land in the 1970's still owned it today and could possibly help me. I went and saw them and talked to the lady that owned the land and sure enough, this place was once a Tropical themed restaurant! She had actually worked in the restaurant but couldn't really remember accurate time lines or was sure about the name. There were palm trees in it and a tropical decor with drinks but that was about all she said. She believed the name of this place could have been 'Tropic Isle' or 'Pacific Isle' but wasn't sure. As I was talking to her, she said it also could have been called something else like 'The Islander' or 'Islanders'. So now I was getting a little confused if this was the right place or not.

What she did know was that the Supper Club did not last as a Tropical Restaurant for too long and operated during the 1970's. The original building burned down in about 1984 as a Steak and Schnitzel House which took over after the Tropical Restaurant closed. There is nothing left of the original building today and a new Applewood Kia dealership is on the land now. She said she did not have any photos or anything from the period that this Restaurant was tropical. The lady was getting busy so I figured it was time to move on although I was still unsure whether this was the right place or if it was once another tropical restaurant (turns out, it was a completly different restaurant called 'The Islanders' which I will post about at a later date).

I decided to go to the local library to see what I could find out. I started looking through old phone books and sure enough stumbled across an ad (See previous post for the ad's I found) for the Tropic Isle! It was very exciting to finally find something concrete about the restaurant. As I looked at the ad in the library, after reading the address, I knew that it had to be this same building that I had always wondered about and admired because of it's oriental style and peaked roof. Funny enough, I grew up about 15 blocks away from where the Tropic Isle once was.

After I started collecting Tiki/Hawaiian stuff about 9-10 years ago, I was interested and would look at the style and size of the building which had been an oriental restaurant. I always said that if I ever opened up a Tiki Restaurant, it would be at this location! It had great style to the outside of the building and little did I know that this was the actual location of The Tropic Isle!

I now had an address with a full ad with logo on it!! Now that I had this info, I figured I should be able to start tracking down information on the owners or find someone who knew more about it!! More to come.....Mahalo!!!

[ Edited by: TabooDan 2007-08-30 18:35 ]