Post #669508 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Mar 2, 2013 9:56 PM

THANK you! There we go, that's a start, thank you everyone :) Now, while we are looking forward to more BAHOOKA PHOTOS, here is some Bahooka HISTORY:

While there is precious little visual material from the early days of Bahooka, and much of its past is steeped in deep mystery, this brief time line explains a few things:

"The owner of the Bahooka was named Jack Fliegel, who traveled around the south seas as a navy private in the early 1950's. When he left the navy he learned the restaurant business while working at Kelbo's for 10 years.
In 1967 he started the first Bahooka restaurant in West Covina with his sister and younger brother. This restaurant was in operation from 1967 to 1980, and Jack kept adding on to it as the business grew. Unfortunately the building grew three feet over the property line and he lost his lease in a legal dispute. The contents were removed, a beautiful custom-built bar was sold off, and the building was demolished.
In 1976 Jack had opened a second restaurant in Rosemead. From 1976 to 1980 there were two Bahookas in operation. This time he owned the land rather than leasing."

So Jack took the Beachcomber concept, the firmament of resin floats, and the ribs-heavy menu from his former place of employ Kelbo's, which, as those Los Angelinos who were lucky enough to have visited it can attest, was just as crammed with flotsam and found objects as Bahooka.

Here's the front and back of the West Covina location menu:

It's original opening text was fine example of Polynesian pop poetry...

...even invoking the spirit of its guardian Tiki!

Fast forward to the early Tiki revival (we will skip over the Mark Ryden copyright issue here) and we are at a LA Cacaphony Society Meeting November 1991:

Having discovered Tiki a couple of years before, I eagerly attended this meet and greet - and afterwards decided that I had to be the one to do a book about it.

After earlier Tiki art group shows curated by Bobby Green and Otto at Cacao Coffee House, and at La Luz de Jesus, Copro Nason Gallery staged a Tiki happening at Bahooka entitled TIKI ART in 1998:

That's it, who can fill in the blanks? :D

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2013-03-02 23:33 ]