Post #664856 by TropicDrinkBoy on Tue, Jan 22, 2013 9:30 PM

Very interesting on several levels! This and Sabu's post with the newspaper story about the Bamboo Room prove that the transition from "Hinky Dinks" to "Trader Vic's" was much more gradual than Trader Vic himself described in his "Frankly Speaking" autobiography.

On page 44 he writes "We decided that Hinky Dinks was a junky name and that the place should be named after someone we could tell a story about. My wife suggested "Trader Vic's" because I was always making a trade with someone. Fine, I became Trader Vic." On the next page he writes "So that starts Trader Vic's. We tore down the horse shoes and snowshoes and dear horns and deer heads and other paraphernalia of a hunting lodge and put up the tropical stuff. We bought a neon sign and we were in business. There was no fanfare about the opening. Just closed one day as Hinky Dinks selling sandwiches and opened the next day as Trader Vic's selling tropical drinks and Chinese food."

In addition I've read elsewhere that the name change took place in 1936 or 1937 but the newspaper story in Sabu's post clearly states that as of July 28, 1938 it was still called Hinky Dinks.