Post #367118 by tikicar on Sat, Mar 15, 2008 1:44 PM

Well I was at Julians last week when I was in Daytona for bike week. It has new owners from two years ago when I was there. Same old bartender at least. It is going downhill fast so stop if you can. They cut open the front doors where the mesh panels were and put glass in there. Poor job and only to allow light in which is stupid in my opinion. Next they removed all of the fiberglass shields out front. You can see where they power cords are still there because they were back lit. There was at least one Witco mask missing. The one on the left wall as you are walking down towards the bar where they sliding panels start to open up the left side. The longer one on the right wall was still there. The new owners don't get it at all. We asked about the shields and they said they were damaged in the last hurricane. No they weren't because my brother lives right down the street and stayed through all of the storms. They survived. We asked about the mask and she said there was never one there? We asked if they still had any of the so called broken shields and she said no. I bet within a year or so it will just be a regular resturant. It will be a sad day when they paint over the mural. The rear tiki bar now looks like a wall mart version of tiki. We started going there in the late 60s for vacation. I grew up with that place and the organ player sining welcome to my world. Whenever I visit I always go to just sit at the bar. Never could as a kid!. We did go to Aku Tiki and had dinner at the Traders there. It still looks good and the restoration is fine without loosing the feel of the past. The Hawaiian Inn recently had a giant piece of cocina rock that was attached to the hotel fall off and crash through the roof of the lobby onto the floor. No one was hurt but they have since stripped the rock off the front. Hopefully they will replace it. With the concrete and rebarb decitegrating after 40+ years of salt air it is amazing it lasted that long. Scott