Post #570577 by Dustycajun on Wed, Dec 29, 2010 4:12 PM

I just got one of the Don the Beachcomber menus featuring Don's Leeteg painting on the cover. The seller said it came from the Santa Barbara restaurant, which is pretty cool because that's where I'm from - hell I might have even used that one in the early 80's.

The menu has a nice little story on the history of Don the Beachcomber.

And a write up on Rum.

Now this is interesting....

The Don the Beachcomber in Santa Barbara was located in the upstairs restaurant at the Santa Barbara Inn. Here are some matchbooks posted previously by Tiki Kate.

I used to go the Santa Barbara Don the Beachcomber's when I got out of college from UCSB, but never remembered what the restaurant was before DTB moved in. Well, I saw this menu on ebay that was old stock from the Tahitian restaurants in Pasadena and Studio City that was reused for a restaurant called the Oceania Room located in the Santa Barbara Inn!

The inside of the menu is the same as the Tahitian menu only with the name Oceania added.

During the 1970's and 80's era of expansion, the DTB chain was known for moving into Tiki restaurants that closed (Tonga Lei - Malibu, Trader Vic's - Denver, Trade Winds - Oxnard, etc.). I'm thinking that the DTB chain moved into the Oceania Room at the Santa Barbara Inn. How cool is that!

DC

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2011-01-08 07:01 ]