Post #582849 by TikiTomD on Fri, Apr 1, 2011 8:08 AM

On the question of when and how long was the Moon Islander in business, individual recollections are from the early to mid 1960s to early 1980s. What does the media record indicate? There are some really good clues here...

The Florida Today “Best is yet to come” article from April 30, 1968 (posted previously) has Jack Mintzer, local businessman, citing several new restaurants that opened in Titusville in the last year, one of which was the Moon Islander...

That would seem to make the opening date in 1967. Recall from an earlier posting that my junior high school prom dinner was at the Moon Islander in 1967 (late spring/early summer). That’s a check for consistency.

So, when did the end come? Carol, the former Moon Islander bartender, stated that the business was sold to a local realtor in the early 1980s, and then failed under the new owner within a year or so. Well, the article on the judge’s lunch tip scandal was dated March 5, 1982 and used the name of the Moon Islander. The last time I found any mention of the Moon Islander in the local news archive was this snippet in the Space Coast dining section, dated March 12, 1982...

On April 21, 1982, I found this ad for Sam’s Riverview (formerly Moon Islander)...

Additional Sam’s Riverview ads appeared on May 8 & 9, 1982, then nothing. This seems to indicate the restaurant ownership change occurred between March and April of 1982, and that the new owners did not continue to operate as the Moon Islander.

My conclusion... the Moon Islander had at least a 15-year run under Moon Lueg, from circa 1967 to 1982. That’s quite a remarkable accomplishment, considering that Titusville’s tiki palace weathered the really grim economic climate that followed the last of the Apollo launches in 1975, when many other businesses failed. It persisted through tough times to witness the first launch of the Space Shuttle in 1981. When Mr. Moon retired from his restaurant and moved to Ft. Pierce, he was 74 years old (SSDI records indicate his birth in 1908). He passed away only 2 years later, in 1984 (again based on SSDI records).

I haven’t yet been able to find any Moon Islander prom dinner photos from 1967. The closest I came was this photo, taken inside my date’s home by her Dad before departing for the prom (probably held as evidence, should I fail to return said daughter in similar condition)...

That prom date became my wife… dig the hair! She still has hers, but much of mine has departed. In those days I surfed at Playalinda Beach, immediately north of the Apollo (and later, Space Shuttle) launch pads. The beach was closed anytime a manned space mission was about to be launched, as it was within the security zone and launch danger area. For the same reasons, it continues to be closed for Space Shuttle launches, though not much longer…