Tiki History - The Kalua Room, Hotel Windsor, Seattle - General Tiki

T tikicoma Grand Member (9 years) wakinekona Joined: Jan 16, 2010 Posts: 840	T tikicoma Posted posted on Fri, Apr 26, 2013 8:50 PM Press photo from an internet auction. VAL AUSTIN HAS HIS OWN SOUTH SEA ISLAND PARADISE With hula skirted waitresses- ...Recently we visited the refurbished Kalua Room in the Austin brothers Windsor Motor Hotel...But the Kalua Room -that's something else again! "We wanted to establish a flavor or personality for the Windsor" Val Austin explained. "A downtown dining room with the same compelling power as a shipwreck or a ghost town." "Someplace where Mr. and Mrs., especially Mrs. Seattle, could get away from the monotony of the workaday-world a brief escape to glamorous and far-off Tahiti. In other words," Val said, leading us into a tiki-decorated and grass-matted labyrinth of low-ceilinged rooms with Polynesian decor, "Saturday night at Quinn's Bar in Papeete. You are in Tahiti, land of the grass skirts, and wonders and surprises." We looked around- and liked what we saw. If this is typical of post fair Seattle, we won't miss the fairgrounds-not even the fast-wiggling Tahitian dancer at the Polynesian Playhouse. Grass-skirted cocktail and food waitresses glided in and out of the various dining rooms, many of them small and delightfully cozy (the rooms, we mean), with tasty-looking strips of beef, charbroiled and served on a stick. After six months of eating food on a stick at the fair, we acquired a taste for teriyaki, also a mental resolve to return to conventional knife and fork once the fair ended. But, after tasting the Kalua hors d'oeuvre on a stick, our postfair resolution went out the bamboo window. Another delightful innovation on the Kalua menu is something called Mai-Tai, a Tahitian concoction with a delayed-action fuse, that is served in a take-away bamboo glass by a sarong-clad beauty. Again, we must make it clear that only the bamboo glass may be taken home as a souvenir. Gwynne Austin spent 18 years with the Roy Kelly Scott chain, and managed the Kona Inn on the big island (hawaii), was general manager of Honolulu's Halekulani and, later presided at the opening of Henry Kaiser's posh Hawaiian Village. So when Gwynne left Hawaii to take over Seattle's Windsor in 1954, he brought with him much of the warmth and graciousness of the Islands. The Austins are warm and gracious hosts, and succeed, the must! aloha, tikicoma p.s. The remodel of the Kalua Room was done by Roland Terry, the architect that did the interior designs (I believe) for the Seattle and Honolulu Canlis' and the remodel of Clarks Islander in Tacoma.

Press photo from an internet auction.

VAL AUSTIN HAS HIS OWN SOUTH SEA ISLAND PARADISE
With hula skirted waitresses-

...Recently we visited the refurbished Kalua Room in the Austin brothers Windsor Motor Hotel...But the Kalua Room -that's something else again!

"We wanted to establish a flavor or personality for the Windsor" Val Austin explained. "A downtown dining room with the same compelling power as a shipwreck or a ghost town." "Someplace where Mr. and Mrs., especially Mrs. Seattle, could get away from the monotony of the workaday-world a brief escape to glamorous and far-off Tahiti. In other words," Val said, leading us into a tiki-decorated and grass-matted labyrinth of low-ceilinged rooms with Polynesian decor, "Saturday night at Quinn's Bar in Papeete. You are in Tahiti, land of the grass skirts, and wonders and surprises."

We looked around- and liked what we saw. If this is typical of post fair Seattle, we won't miss the fairgrounds-not even the fast-wiggling Tahitian dancer at the Polynesian Playhouse.

Grass-skirted cocktail and food waitresses glided in and out of the various dining rooms, many of them small and delightfully cozy (the rooms, we mean), with tasty-looking strips of beef, charbroiled and served on a stick.

After six months of eating food on a stick at the fair, we acquired a taste for teriyaki, also a mental resolve to return to conventional knife and fork once the fair ended. But, after tasting the Kalua hors d'oeuvre on a stick, our postfair resolution went out the bamboo window.

Another delightful innovation on the Kalua menu is something called Mai-Tai, a Tahitian concoction with a delayed-action fuse, that is served in a take-away bamboo glass by a sarong-clad beauty. Again, we must make it clear that only the bamboo glass may be taken home as a souvenir.

Gwynne Austin spent 18 years with the Roy Kelly Scott chain, and managed the Kona Inn on the big island (hawaii), was general manager of Honolulu's Halekulani and, later presided at the opening of Henry Kaiser's posh Hawaiian Village.

So when Gwynne left Hawaii to take over Seattle's Windsor in 1954, he brought with him much of the warmth and graciousness of the Islands. The Austins are warm and gracious hosts, and succeed, the must!

aloha, tikicoma

p.s. The remodel of the Kalua Room was done by Roland Terry, the architect that did the interior designs (I believe) for the Seattle and Honolulu Canlis' and the remodel of Clarks Islander in Tacoma.

Post #675687 by tikicoma on Fri, Apr 26, 2013 8:50 PM