Post #596159 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Jul 4, 2011 2:26 PM

Chuck, that was a completely different location in Vegas, opened by Art much later, after he had gotten the rights for the name.

On 2011-07-04 08:40, bb moondog wrote:
jeez, I wish I did...checked thru all my honeymoon pix and NOTHING...I SWEAR it was accessed by an elevator ride and was not a stand alone restaurant...

You are correct, Moondog, the restaurant was accessed by a Plumeria-scented elevator (one step further than elevator muzak!). You got out on the 3rd floor and crossed footbridge, which was guarded by two large Tikis. We are seeing the back of one in Moondog's photo. They were carved and "polychromed" by Oceanic Arts. This is the term they used for applying faded, aged-looking colors. Here's a good example of an O.A. carving I own, polychromed in the same old style:

This way of painting a carving made it look authentic, not clownish.

Many Many years ago (early 90s) after the Beachcomber closed, these two big Tikis, together with a couple of cool Cannibal and Cook Island Tiki-topped posts, were re-acquired by Oceanic Arts (together with anything else resembling classic Tiki decor), leaving that Beachcomber location looking even more un-Tiki than it already did to begin with.

Unfortunately, at some point, O.A. decided to re-paint their re-possessed Sahara Beachcomber Tikis ("due to popular taste"), and this is what they look like now:

But I bet you if someone would go to O.A. and photograph the backs of these two, we would be able to identify the head crest of one of them as the one in the photo. My guess it's the one on the right:

In order to be able to look at these for a longer time, I de-saturated them, and now we can count the same layers of eye brows on the front of the right Tiki - from the bottom: 1 straight, 1 ribbed, 2 straight - than in the back of the one in Moondog's photo: