Are any of you old enough to remember the lovely Tahitian room at the Mayfair hotel in London? I have a delightful photo of it. Does anyone know when the Tahitian room went out of business?

I think it got removed during renovations in 1984, i posted about it here..

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=1140&forum=1

Please post the pictures, the mayfair beachcomber is like the lost temple of brit-tiki, it inspired the beachcomber bars at the butlins holiday camps, i don't supose you know what tiki kugs they had?

Thank you for your response. It seems many tiki establishment fell victim to the 80's. I will certainly post my picture as soon as I can figure out how to do so!

Interestingly so, the Mayfair Beachcomber was built by two expatriate American producers that owned a movie studio in London...forgot in what issue of Tiki News that report was...Apparently, there is great footage from it on Pathe News.

The Beachcomber at the Mayfair in London is indeed of vast importance to the history of Brit-Tiki, but it's still a jigsaw with most of the pieces missing. A photo of the 'Tahitian Room' would be a particularly large piece of that puzzle! No mugs have been found, yet they exist in the fantastic film clip downloadable (free) fom the Pathe UK site.

Trader Woody

How weird that this topic has been brought up again - last night while perusing my computer here at work I came across an unidentified WMV file - I opened it up and lo and behold the British Pathe video of the tiki bars. I must have started downloading the file and moved on to something else - never realizing that the whole thing downloaded. It was a real nice 10 minute treat and amazing video at that - what was the flaming drink that was poured into the handled mugs (rather nice looking mugs by the way)? Also, it was nice to see the potential Pi-Yi's being consumed out of the pineapples! My only complaint was the lack of audio!

I sent the photo of the Beachcomber Tahitian room to "Trader Woody's" email as I am far to spastic this evening to figure out how to post it here. Sorry. I saw he had an email address. Enjoy

Tiki*seeker, it doesn't seem to have arrived at my inbox - do you want to try again? I'll make sure we can all see it.

Many thanks,
Trader Woody

Trader Woody,
I emailed the photo to you as an attachment but it came back undeliverable. Is your email set up so you can receive attachments?

Here's a postcard from the Beachcomber. Tiki*seeker, is this one different than the one you have ? This is the only postcard from there that I have seen so far. Hope this is helpful. Those film clips from the British Pathe site are amazing !

[ Edited by: puamana on 2003-04-26 10:29 ]

Tiki*seeker,

It's a Hotmail address which sometimes has a little trouble with large files. If you send me your e-mail address, I'll forward my work address. I'd post that here, but those spam machine thingy's would have field day with it. Can't wait to see the photo!

Puamana, that photo is worth a hell of a lot more than 1000 words! It looks even more amazing than the Pathe film suggests. It's a real tragedy that the place was lost....

Wow, I'm glad this topic came up again!!!

Trader Woody

Puamana,
My photo is different. But, ooolala, I like that place from your card.

My picture shows more of the dining area and does show unusual tiki mugs.

And here it is:

Thanks Tiki*Seeker....great photo!

Trader Woody

Trader Woody & Tiki*seeker,

Wow, what a great photo,very nice ! Thanks for posting. Has anyone ever seen a menu from there ? With an interior that elaborate, its hard to imagine that there was just a plain old menu.

Unfortunatly, I've not seen a menu. In fact, I've not seen a mug, either. Not much seems to have escaped the place, but with just a few Tiki-philes in the UK, this stuff could easily have passed us by. I did get an LP by the house band a while back (pretty awful Hawaiian tunes played by Brits) and I've an un-marked mug which may just have originated at the Beachcomber.

That's why the above photos are such a godsend - a real picture of the place is being built up.

Trader Woody

The menu cover I know is quite cool, modernistic, says "BEACHCOMBER", with a line drawing of their logo Tiki, which also appeared on the matchbooks, and which one can make out on the backs of the chairs in the second postcard on this thread:
It's a Marquesan jewelry Tiki, the little compact ones they used to carve out of human bone.
They probably got the design from the museum library...

Any chance of you posting a scan of ther menu cover to give us brit-tiki hunters a sent for our hunts.

I've also had this postcard for quite some time and never knew where this was located!

http://www.swankpad.org/cfhr/tiki/postcards.htm

The only text on the back of the postcard says "Beachcomber" - no other markings.

On 2003-05-03 10:18, atomictonytiki wrote:
Any chance of you posting a scan of ther menu cover to give us brit-tiki hunters a sent for our hunts.

Sorry, I don't have a scanner or camera...
The menu is orange...the Tiki line drawing in white...hmmm...anyway, I don't have it with me, the xerox is in L.A., sorry

I think I've located another source of footage of the Beachcomber/tahiti room.
I was watching one of those old pop video comilation shows and up came ABC's video for their 1982 hit "POISON ARROW" (dir, julian temple) and i think the video is filmed in the beachcomber. I've trawled through a swamp of ABC fan sites but no confermation as yet, but the tiki in the far left of tiki*seekers pic is the spitting image of the one in the video plus the more underwater tiki theme matches as well.

On 2003-04-30 12:37, Trader Woody wrote:
Unfortunatly, I've not seen a menu. In fact, I've not seen a mug, either. Not much seems to have escaped the place, but with just a few Tiki-philes in the UK, this stuff could easily have passed us by.

Antiques Roadshow, 2053

Tiki Expert: Madam, do you have any idea what this mug from the Tahitian Room is worth?

Woman: Can't imagine, I'm sure. It's just some old thing Gran used to keep her teeth in.

Tiki Expert: What would you say if I told you it would fetch 5 million Euros at auction?

Woman: I say. Rather good.

i live in fear of that day, currantly on brittish telly the daytime telly is full of get-cash-from-selling-your-collectable-shows, one dark day soon they'll mention tiki and days of cheap tiki here will be over.

There was actually a fleeting look at a moai mug on that show with David Dickinson (Bargain hunt?). Luckily they didn't pick it up and start talking about it!

We're lucky to live in a place that attaches little value to Tiki, (so what we do find is inevitably cheap) but unlucky in the fact that there just isn't that much Tiki stuff around....

Trader Woody

Thanks to finding a cheap DVD compilation of 80's pop classics i can now post pictures of the ABC "Poison Arrow" video.

ABC playing their hit to old ladies...

Martin Fry and his imfamous gold suit...
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Oooh the tiki's eye flash...
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another tiki head...

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a right posh lookin' bird walks into the bar.. (anyone know if the Tahitian room was in the hotels basement?)

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The crowd look surprised, but nobody more than Debbie Harry on the right caught dancing with an old bloke..

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i wish the video showed the back of the chairs because if they had the logo on them it would be proof positive of the location.
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nice fish traps on the celling...
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whats that behind the posh lass?
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Its a lovely moai head...
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..So can anyone confirm that this is more of the interior of the Tahitian room?

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki on 2004-08-19 to make the pictures appear again after moving webspace12:51 ]

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki on 2004-08-19 12:52 ]

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki 2009-01-03 01:05 ]

Hey VG! Look! It's Martin!

Sigh....god bless Martin Fry.

Great photos! I'll have to dig up that poison arrow video!

Trader Woody

I won these matchbooks on eBay recently,
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three tiny tiki crumbs from a lost tiki bar..

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki on 2004-09-04 09:45 ]

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki 2009-01-03 01:08 ]

Yup, that's the Tiki that is also on the menu cover, upside down it is actually harder to see it's resemblance to a Marquesan toggle Tiki, but that's what it is. Another establishment with a logo Tiki.

A swizzle stick from the Mayfair Beachcomber in London:
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Excellent, Sabu - that's the first I've seen! I'm still looking for a mug, but it looks very likely that at least one will resemble their logo, or perhaps have the logo on it.

I wonder where all their mugs went when it closed down - hopefully to their staff rather than a skip.

Trader Woody

Whilst reseaching this bar I talked to the former Barman and the Doorman and found out that the entire interior of the bar was bought up by the DeVerre group to maybe be reused. I even found out who instigated the deal between the two companies, but after trying to contact them have drawn a blank. The instigator of the deal has moved to Paris and the DeVerre group apparently no nothing.
The Truth/Bar is out there!

Way back in 2003 (when this thread was created) we didn't have the magic of YouTube.

From 1982, the music video by ABC for Poison Arrow, partially filmed (apparently) in the Mayfair Hotel Beachcomber Tahitian Room.

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And here's a link to the video.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDNTlR3Yrqw

Sure takes me back.....

I spotted the Beachcomber having been used as a location again, this time in The Comic Strip film "Slags" featuring a young Anthony Head (giles from Buffy) as the leader of a futuristic gang called the Hawaiians...

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..I did notice in one scene that the shorter version of the two face glass tiki mug was being used in the bar.

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki 2009-05-04 07:52 ]