Post #86408 by Sabu The Coconut Boy on Thu, Apr 15, 2004 2:58 PM

Ok, now that we've agreed (maybe) that Tiki Bob was the first mug, (unless of course, you count the tiki-supported bowl used at Trader Vic's in the 1940s) - I have a second question:

When were tikis first used as decor in Polynesian Restaurants?

I would suspect that Trader Vics or Don The Beacomber's might have been the first, but all my postcards showing tikis at these locations are Kodachromes dating from the 1950s & 60s. Every linen postcard from the 20s, 30s & 40s shows tropical bars and clubs with plenty of palm trees, fishing floats, and South Sea murals, but no tikis.

Except for one. I finally obtained a linen postcard from the elusive "Vagabond House" in Los Angeles. If you remember from a previous thread, the Vagabond House was founded by Joe Chastek who also owned an earlier club called the Zamboanga, (Home of the Tailess Monkeys). The Matchbooks and napkins from the Vagabond House are beautiful pieces of art, but I had never seen what the inside of the restaurant looked like until now:

A truly beautiful bar, but I was especially pleased to see cartoonish tikis cavorting on the painted column and perhaps another carved tiki on the reddish wood panel to the right of the column.


(I'm assuming the two guys in the lower picture are caricatured Marquesan Tikis, but they could just as well be stereotyped natives. But the first picture looks a heck of a lot like a tiki - or is it?).

This also brings up another interesting question. The club was named after the book, "Vagabond House" written by Don Blanding. Is the artwork on the column by Don Blanding as well? I seem to remember illustrations is his books of poetry that were similar.

The postcard is postmarked June 1948, which makes it the earliest postcard in my collection showing actual tikis in a South Seas bar. Does anyone else know of an earlier image?

Sabu

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy on 2004-04-15 15:04 ]