Post #539569 by Dustycajun on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 6:26 PM

Name:Junkanoo
Type:restaurant
Street:1629 Connecticut Avenue
City:Washington
State:DC
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
There is an old Tiki Archeology thread about the Junkanoo restaurant that Sabu and Puamana started years ago under General Tiki. All of the images are gone in that thread so I thought I should start a new one here under Locating Tiki.

The Junkanoo restaurant was located at 1629 Connecticut Avenue at Dupont Circle in the late 1960s. Apparently it was some pretty pricey real estate during that era. It was demolished in 1987-88. I got really interested in this place when I won this old news photo of the exterior on ebay.

The exterior had some cool thatched entrances and the signature Tiki - Witch Doctor logo on the outside of the building. You can see the menu in the shadow box by the front door.

Here is the menu from Mimi Paynes website.

The Junkanoo offered a signature mug made by Wellsville China. There are a few examples on Ooga Mooga, these are from the collections of eab21 and Kohalacharms.

Now the intriguing part of the Junkanoo story is the 1974 scandal involving Representative Wilbur Mills that embroiled Washington DC. Mills went partying at the Junkanoo with an Argentinian stripper who later jumped out of Mills car into the Tidal Basin river at 2:00 in the morning after being pulled over by the police. The incident ruined Mills career.

Here is the photo and the story.

Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxe, talks with newsmen and photographers, outside her dressing room at the Pilgrim Theater. December 1st 1974.

Mark Sanfords Argentine affair seems to recall the Tidal Basin incidence where another Argentinean woman who killed the political career of powerful Representative Wilbur Mills (D-Arkansas). It wasn=t the most famous indiscretion in Senate History, but it was no less embarrassing. On the night of October 9, 1974, Mills and his stripper friend Annabelle Battistella (better known as Fanne Foxe or the Argentine Firecracker) were stopped by Park Police in D.C. because the driver had not turned on the lights. When police approached the car, Foxe leapt from the car and jumped into the nearby Tidal Basin in an attempt to escape.
Despite the scandal, Mills was re-elected to Congress in November 1974 in a heavily Democratic year helped by the Watergate scandal. On November 30, Mills visited Foxe at a Boston strip club, The Pilgrim Theatre; he received a kiss on the cheek on stage. In light of this second encounter, Mills (and his alcoholism) was viewed as a liability in the upcoming election and stripped of his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. He did not seek re-election in 1976. It was an ignominious downfall for someone who had once been considered a presidential contender.

Foxe, who was promised a movie career by the congressman, changed her name to the Tidal Basin Bombshell and wrote a book, AThe Stripper and the Congressman.

The story from my photo.

There's nothing better than a drunken political scandal involving a Tiki restaurant and a stripper!

DC