Post #604600 by meega on Mon, Aug 29, 2011 9:33 AM

Below is a Judge's Beyond the Reef Menu I picked up. It is not a dinner menu, but more of an appetizer/cocktail menu for the bar or lounge crowd. It has no street address, phone number, or date to fit into a time line, but some of the drinks like the Sneaky Tiki, Rum Cooler, Whaler's Grog, Kona Breeze, Fog Cutter, Kalypso, Mai Tai are also listed in the 1979 Milwaukee Journal ad listed above. Another drink on the menu....the Bosa Nova Cocktail sounds awfully 60ish, and I'm not sure the term even made the 70's lexicon. Of course that doesn't mean the the cocktails didn't outlive the mainstream music's popularity. Price-wise $1.35 for an egg roll isn't far off from current prices around here if they mean "per".....$1 for a shrimp cocktail seems pretty cheap. $1.75 for a Mai tai is a lot cheaper than a $7 or $8 current local price.

Also, about the bluish statue above......the "arnel's" marking, as near as I can figure out, was(or still is) the manufacturer of plaster slip-cast molds for ceramics industry. I don't know what their market was/is, but it seems to some degree ceramic classes might be one. I haven't been able to nail down much about there history, but I think I saw where they've been around since the early 50's, but it looks like Mackies has taken over their inventory.

Some listings I've seen had ID'd the extra markings as the artist/painter/glazer intitials + date, and some with personalized messages carved in as well. There seems to a lot from the 70's.........mushroom themes looked pretty popular, owls, lots of pitchers, cups, mugs, steins, cookie jars, canisters, as well as various figures including Asian & African, so it is concievable that back in the day they offered Polynesian styles. I have seen some primitive stuff, but no actual tiki as yet.

Originally I thought the "Judge's" mug may have been from a more generic primitive or African collection. The rarity factor may be that they were a limited castings by a friend, or possibly even Peggy Judge, or Norma Schuster in a ceramics class, which were somewhat popular at that time.....I remember my mother's ceramic poddle collection from classes. Another thing I noticed, but can't tell for sure, is it looks like "Judge's" & initialing is painted on, rather than scribed in like most of what I've seen on arnel's castings.

However the menu above only has one drink that says served with a mug - the Sneaky Tiki, with a "Hand Designed Ceramic Tiki for you to Keep to remember the Occasion." So they must have been made in some quantity in order to advertise a give away item.