Post #423009 by Bongo Bungalow on Wed, Dec 10, 2008 7:12 AM

I'm ready for "Boo's" and "Hiss's" but I'm not so sure there's much of anything that individuals can do to save an establishment that the owners want to change.

[Understand that I truly would not want The Tonga Room to be lost... I hope to go there one day, and besides, it is our mission to preserve historic tiki landmarks.]

What I'm saying is, 4, 12 or 20 guests committed to visiting a bar once a week is not going to make or break a bar financially. If the market isn't supporting an establishment, it's going under. Tiki-affectionados are not enough; most bars require a wide clientele. History-shmistory, I suspect the ownders want to make money.

Historic designation? Really? Do you want to force management to keep open something they don't believe in? That's a recipe for failure if I ever heard one.

Marketing restaurants is what I do. So can you save the bar by improving the marketing? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I won't go into an evaluation 'cause I've never been there and don't know the market. At least they have something unique, that's a good start.

We all hope that they don't close The Tonga Room. But if the numbers aren't working for them, and they don't have a plan to do better with this concept, it's gonna have to close.