Post #441545 by artsnyder on Fri, Mar 20, 2009 11:21 PM

Aloha,friends:
I suppose that it is time to discuss just how the building we are talking about got built, why the property-owners stopped using "DON THE BEACHCOMBER(R)" in the 70's, only to put the sign back in the '90s, why it has not been used except for storage and an occasional makeshift bar for many years, and why it's being torn down.
DTB came to Maui in the 70s, when the owners of the property hired a management company to run its property. That company had the name "Don the Beachcomber," obtained from Donn shortly before, and one of its attractions as a manager was to be able to bring that magic name to the hotel. Their contract said, naturally and specifically that the owners of the location were not to obtain any right to the name, and if they left it went with them. It was this company that built the lovely old building we all admire.
Years later, the relationship between the managing company and the owners was terminated by agreement, and the Don the Beachcomber sign and use of the name was terminated. After that the property-owners used a Chinese restaurant name. However, not too much later, they figured out that while "Don the Beachcomber? belonged to the management company, they could use the generic term, "Beachcombers" without restriction. And so the old building had a new name.
"Beachcombers" then opened and had quite a success until the sewage started to back up and flood the kitchen. The owners had overburdened the island sewage system by their constant expansion, and the county health department closed "Beachcombers." Today it remains under the same order, and cannot legally operate as a restaurant, nor can it be used for anything that generates sewage. Even the spillage from the little makeshift bar they have there to serve the luau-goers with "Mai-Tais" in a plastic cup has to have its sewage carried away by bucket.
After that closure the building was generally used as storage. The kitchen is unused and covered with dust. The old refrigerators stand open. It has, except for the little bar, remained unused for anything related to DTB for these years.
Since then, while there has been a great deal of lip-service given to DTB at the hotel (a couple of Christmases ago they opened their main dining room briefly as DTB,but after the holiday returned it to the original.
The sign on the outside is a reasonably recent addition, placed there after they had discovered that old friends of Donn had obtained the right to the name, and were planning on opening one on the Mainland. It has done little good, since the owners never have and still do not have any right to the name "Don the Beachcomber(R).
And that, my friends, is the story of that pretty little doomed building with the name Don the Beachcomber on its' side, at the Royal Lahaina Hotel. The restaurant at the "Royal Kona" is another, but related, story.

Mahalo,

Art Snyder, Managing Partner
Marisol llc, a Nevada limited liability company,
dba Don the Beachcomber Industries
and
TropicRum llc, a California limited liability company,
licensed as Don the Beachcomber, Surf City