Post #594817 by TikiTomD on Fri, Jun 24, 2011 7:51 AM

Nice, clear color zoom-in of the Tropics entry and that 57 Chevy as well, DustyCajun!

Your postcard photo got me to wondering again about several items: (1) The early newspaper and postcard photos of the Ellinor Village Shopping Center show a flat-roofed business office next to the Tropics, so when and what prompted the A-frame structure that shows up in photos from the late 1950s and on? and (2) The original décor of the Tropics was Caribbean tropical featuring a pirate mural, so was there some event that precipitated a change to the Polynesian décor cited by later newspaper articles and evidenced in the matchbook cover images?

After digging back into the newspaper archives, I believe I found a definitive answer to (1) and speculate that it was also the same event that precipitated (2)...

On December 12, 1957, a fire destroyed much of the Ellinor Village Shopping Center, including the Tropics...

Ocala Star-Banner December 12, 1957

St. Petersburg Times December 13, 1957

A year later almost to the day, the shopping center held its grand re-opening, to include the Tropics. Note the new A-frame structure...

Daytona Beach Morning Journal December 9, 1958

We dined again at Julian’s this past weekend. Though they were moderately busy with a 50th wedding anniversary party, the service and food remained excellent. This time, there was live entertainment in the form of a lady lounge singer who nicely performed a range of songs from the 1950s to the 1980s. The whole experience was like time-traveling back to the epoch of “I Dream of Jeannie.”

-Tom