Post #650022 by Dustycajun on Tue, Aug 28, 2012 11:29 PM

Zulu Magoo has a nice story about the Don the Beachcomber's in Denver, which took over Trader Vic's in Denver, and then went on to sell the entire contents for $65K to another Beachcomber restaurant that opened in Lakewood.

"Trader Vic’s had closed at the Denver Hilton in 1985 and left the Denver market, but can you guess who moved into that vacant spot at the Hilton? Yep, Don the Beachcomber followed Vic’s a second time and opened in 1986 after they left the Cosmo. They only lasted a few years, but incredibly Denver had two different hotels that both hosted a Trader Vic’s and a Don the Beachcomber. Some cities were lucky if they got one location, Denver had five versions!

Several years later I discovered what happened to the auctioned contents from Don the Beachcomber when the Cosmo shut down. The Denver Post article stated that everything had been purchased for $65,000 was being moved to the west side of town. The auctioned décor ended up at a Ramada Inn at the corner of 6th Avenue and Simms Street in Lakewood, CO (now a Ford car dealership). The Ramada had a lobby bar called Captain Bligh’s Tavern. They also had a restaurant called The Beachcomber.

So the décor in the Ramada Beachcomber at this point was third generation, It came from Don the Beachcomber in the Cosmo, who had inherited it from Trader Vic’s when it was originally installed.

Cool story by Zulu Magoo!

DC