Post #558777 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Oct 9, 2010 8:45 AM

I would like to take this opportunity to delve a little deeper into the Copycat Custom in Polynesian Pop, or the tradition of Tiki transmission as I like to call it. I was inspired by D.C.'s recent find of this N.Y. Trader Vic's photo to pull out my Kon Tiki Montreal slide (BOT page 61):

Trader Vic's New York (at the Savoy Hotel), 1958 ------------------------------------------------Stephen Crane's Kon Tiki Montreal, 1958

An, as they say, UNCANNY similarity, wouldn't you say? Don't ask me which was built first, I could not ascertain the month for either so far.
I would guess Vic's. To explain why, here a little transmission tradition history. It all began with this famous "Fall from Grace", or "Eternal Sin", freely admitted to by Trader Vic in his biography:

Eventually, as it is an unwritten law that "He who rippeth off will have so done upon him", this led to such no less (in)famous, funny menu text confessions as the following by Reno's Trader Dick:

When Tiki temple building heated up by the end of the 50s, Business Week Magazine took notice in this article in 1959:

Inspired by the fact that both Vic and Steve were almost parallel opening places in Portland and Chicago too, they profiled the two entrepreneurs and their similar styles. Though it worthy to note that Vic moved in on Steve's neighborhood first, when he opened his Beverly Hills Vic's in 1955 just around the corner from Crane's Luau (which he has converted in 1953 from Sugie's Tropics), Crane lost no time to benefit from this:

When Florian Gabriel applied for a job at Stephen Crane Associates in the mid-50s, Crane sent him to Vic's, to sit there and sketch a corner of the restaurant as a test. This amazing example of industrial espionage was given to me by Gabe in the 90s, here it is:

So Vic took Don's concepts, ran with them, and because he was so successful with it all, it led to others copying him, and Voila!, we got Tiki culture!

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2010-10-09 08:47 ]