Post #415085 by Dustycajun on Thu, Oct 23, 2008 5:44 PM

Tikiyaki,

You are right, Donald Trump is BAD!
I found this article on the New York Times archive documenting the close of the Trader Vic’s at the Plaza.

“Trader Vic's, the Polynesian bar in the Plaza that has played host to generations of moneyed gadabouts, prep school students on R&R and fans of its Samoan Fog Cutters, has ''gotten tacky'' and will be closed, the hotel's owner, Donald J. Trump, said yesterday. ''Trader Vic's does not fit in with the image of the hotel that I want to achieve,'' Mr. Trump said.

Trader Vic's will be replaced by a health club, a restaurant featuring Chinese and Japanese food and - in an adjustment sure to give some solace to grieving patrons - a bar, under Trump ownership, that will serve tropical drinks. Mr. Trump could not say yesterday whether those drinks would include floating gardenias or bristling batteries of straws.
Mr. Trump, who bought the Plaza for $390 million in March, said construction would begin in three or four months on the Oriental restaurant and the athletic club, which will feature a Nautilus weightlifting circuit and will initially be open only to hotel guests. Pooh-Poohing the 'Pu-Pu'

More than a year ago, the restaurant part of Trader Vic's, which has occupied the basement of the Plaza for almost 25 years, was closed by one of the hotel's previous owners, the Westin Hotels and Resorts Chain. The 12,000-foot restaurant space has been empty since then, but the bar has remained open, offering its popular ''pu-pu'' platter - a variety of hors d'oeuvres - and a wide assortment of customer-staggering potions.
Clint Wade, a spokesman for the Trader Vic's chain in New York, said the company hopes to run the new Oriental restaurant. But Mr. Trump said he has ''no intention of keeping Trader Vic's'' at the Plaza. ''The Trumps want to get a new looking restaurant and that is also what we want,'' Mr. Wade said. ''Sure, Trader Vic's has gotten tacky, but that's because nothing has been done to it in 12 years.''

Didier A. Peyron, president and chief executive of Trader Vic's Restaurants Inc., said he was unaware of Mr. Trump's decision and was planning to meet with him this week. ''There will definitely be a Trader Vic in New York, even if it's closed at the Plaza,'' said a surprised Mr. Peyron from his office in San Francisco, where the company is based.
Trader Vic's, with its dim, cavernous rooms topped by thatched roofs and decorated with spears and dugout canoes, remained persistently chic after its opening in 1958 at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, now the site of the General Motors Building. Trader Vic's moved to the Plaza in 1965.
Prep-school teen-agers were lured by its drinks, which had a rum base and names like Dr. Funk of Tahiti.

President Richard M. Nixon said it was one of his favorite restaurants, and he dined there during a visit to New York in 1972. Nixon Laments Its Closing ''My entire family will be very sorry to see it close,'' Mr. Nixon said yesterday through a spokesman. ''It was always our daughters' favorite restaurant, and it quickly became mine too.''

But the restaurant also had its critics. In the 1970's, Yul Brynner told his friends to stop eating at Trader Vic's after he ate spareribs there and suffered trichinosis. He sued the restaurant in 1974 for $3 million and settled out of court four years later.

It is interesting to read that President Nixon also liked this Trader Vic’s after seeing the picture of him at the Washington D.C. Traders in a previous thread on TC.

ikitnrev wrote:
The following is a photo of President Richard Nixon, leaving the Washington D.C. Trader Vics on February 13, 1973. His wife Patricia, and daughter Tricia, are in the background