Tonga Lei, Malibu, CA (restaurant)

Name:Tonga Lei
Type:restaurant
Street:22878 Pacific Coast Highway
City:Malibu
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
Below are 3 views of the Tonga Lei, from a jumbo postcard recently found:

Fantastic, Puamana!

I've only seen the outside view before. I love the tapa-patterned booths and the giant Maori-style tiki. Thanks much for posting these. I think I may scour the Malibu garage sales and thrift stores looking for that volcano bowl.

Sabu

That's great, I always liked comparing how close the exterior was to the Menu rendering.

Looks like their cocktails were not very good though, judging by the reaction of that Tiki to the Volcano bowl :wink:

In the menu, the drink illustrations are hand drawn, and there is a rendering of a bowl with three little PIGS holding it. I am assuming it was just a fantasy, since I never saw or heard of such a design...

That place is so beautiful! I like the continuous hut/roof that extends over the booths. Great find.

I wonder if the building has been torn down.

On 2005-01-22 01:02, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:

I think I may scour the Malibu garage sales and thrift stores looking for that volcano bowl.

Sabu

Very nice volcano bowl!

TBird.

I thought that the interior looked familiar. The address is the same as the Malibu Beach Inn, which is where the Malibu Don The Beachcomber was located.

http://www.malibubeachinn.com/

So, the Tonga Lei became Don The Beachcomber, which is now a hotel with no tiki. Yes, the old building was knocked down to put up the hotel.

The 1983 movie "Losin' It" with Tom Cruise & Shelley Long is set in 1965 Los Angeles/Mexico, and has a role called "Tonga Lei doorman." I've never seen this movie... is it too much to hope that it may have at least some exterior shots of the real, actual Tonga Lei during its twilight years?

IMDB summary:

"Teen sex comedy set in 1965 which follows four Los Angeles school friends, Woody, Dave, Spider, Wendell and the series of misadventures they get into when they travel south of the border to Tijuana, Mexico for a night of cruisin', causing trouble, and to settle a pact to lose their virginity before the night is over, while a young woman, named Kathy, accompanies them for different reasons: to arrange a quick divorce from her husband."

I remember this restaurant very well indeed! It seems to me that the postcard showing the exterior of the building must have been taken sometime in the 60's, because I went there from about 1972 - 79. I remember first going when I was around 5 or 6 years old, and the exterior was slightly different. I recall two GIANT Easter Island tikis along with massive torches flanking the front entrance way, rather than the two flagpole tall torches on the postcard. Once you went inside there was a huge blacklite volcano/waterfall diorama with running water in the foyer where you waited to be sat. That blacklight was hell for anybody with lint on their clothes! To my young eyes the whole place was like taking a trip to Disneyland! Too bad it had to go! Glad I saw the postcard /pics...the interior shots hadn't changed, but I believe the exterior had been redone.

1976 food menu followed by drink menu:

Polynesiac - putting the "F" back in "ART"

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2008-10-08 22:16 ]

There's that mysterious PIG Scorpion bowl again...probably remained just an illustration.

Just a little side note... My Dad grew up in Malibu and parked cars at the Tonga Lei for work when he was young.
Any questions you guys have, I could definitely ask him.
Aloha.

Yeah well then: DID they ever use that pig bowl for their Scorpions? :)

Hey Sven, been a long time...
I asked my Dad about that pig bowl and he said politely, "You really think I can remember that bowl?? I was outside parking cars most of the time." And when we WAS in there sneaking a drink, (he was about 17 at the time) he said that he definitely couldn't afford any of the 'expensive' drinks... He said that he was drinking vodka sodas and stuff. I showed him the pictures from TC though and he was reminiscing about the tikis and thatch booths... Pretty cool... Then, my Mom started talking about going to Don the Beachcomber's and drinking Zombies...

Don't worry, Spike, I was expecting that. Even if he'd worked inside the place, those drink containers were nothing special in the restaurant industry back then, just funny cups for fruity drinks.

found this today at a local thrift.....the matching dinner menu to the already posted drink menu....

I've been wanting to post this napkin for awhile.
It's got it all , the architecture ,the sign ,the font
and the tiki.
Sorry about the quality, I droped my scanner.

Note that the modern stylization of the Tonga Lei sign Tiki is very similar to the Wan-Q:

I've noticed the same thing.
Both places are pretty close in design all around.

I've always loved the simple features of the Tonga Lei's logo tiki.

I think they took the notion of simplicity a bit too far with their swizzles though.

The matchbook and box are a bit more visually stimulating.

Never seen those Tonga Lei swizzles before, Kate. Simple in design, but still very cool.

Here's an old photo I found of the Aloha Lounge entrance of the Tonga Lei:

The location was one of the great mysteries here on TC for awhile back in 2003, (although PiPhiRo had guessed it right away). Here's the original discussion:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=2344&forum=1&start=0

It wasn't until 2007, when bananabobs discovered the same tiki at a client's house and restored it:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=24264&forum=1

.... That he confirmed that my photo was of the Tonga Lei.

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2009-10-29 00:24 ]

Oh how I long to see the original photo from this newspaper and not this crappy microfiche-scanned-to-digital version.

This was from the Aug 18, 1961 issue of the Valley News in Van Nuys, CA, if any intrepid investigators wants to try to track down a better copy.

Oh jeeez, that kills me! JAYNE and LANA and a TIKI --in 1961! And no amount of playing with the contrast and gamma and exposure will save this crappy pic!

On 2005-01-25 23:05, Humuhumu wrote:
The 1983 movie "Losin' It" with Tom Cruise & Shelley Long is set in 1965 Los Angeles/Mexico, and has a role called "Tonga Lei doorman." I've never seen this movie... is it too much to hope that it may have at least some exterior shots of the real, actual Tonga Lei during its twilight years?

IMDB summary:

"Teen sex comedy set in 1965 which follows four Los Angeles school friends, Woody, Dave, Spider, Wendell and the series of misadventures they get into when they travel south of the border to Tijuana, Mexico for a night of cruisin', causing trouble, and to settle a pact to lose their virginity before the night is over, while a young woman, named Kathy, accompanies them for different reasons: to arrange a quick divorce from her husband."

/quote]

I am in the opening scene in " Losin It" I am filling up a rubber at the drinking
fountain.That was my first bit part in a feature film.Great B movie .

We won't believe a word until you show us a still frame frame of that! :)

Sven how do you make a still frame pic from a DVD , and I will post it ?

I have a movie from the 60s that has the Tonga Lei in it. I will try to post some screen shots. Don't remember if it was in color or B & W.

Well I think we are going to keep looking for the Aloha Room entrance from your photo Sabu. The photo you have shows what appears to be a hotel behind the entrance. From the scenes in the 1965 movie (Beach Ball) the "Watusi-A-Go-Go" (Tonga Lei) sits by itself with the Ocean Behind it. Just the one entrance on the front with the menu Tiki in the parking lot.

Great evidence of additional Tiki awesomeness, Bongo!

On 2010-10-31 09:04, bongofury wrote:
Well I think we are going to keep looking for the Aloha Room entrance from your photo Sabu. The photo you have shows what appears to be a hotel behind the entrance. From the scenes in the 1965 movie (Beach Ball) the "Watusi-A-Go-Go" (Tonga Lei) sits by itself with the Ocean Behind it. Just the one entrance on the front with the menu Tiki in the parking lot.

I think when comparing all the photos and renderings, it can be said with fair certainty that the Sabu's B&W photo does not show THAT entrance -- but maybe it was ANOTHER side entrance, maybe off to the left, where the restaurant perhaps connected to the MOTEL?:

Cuz NONE of the photos or any of the many renderings of the Tonga Lei Restaurant posted so far show anything of a structure that could have been a Motel. Where was it in relation to the restaurant, and what did it look like? It even survived longer in name as the restaurant, which briefly became a Don The Beachcomber franchise:

Unfortunately, the photo to this article isn't much help:

Though its basic straight lines match the boxy building on top of Sabu's photo:

Still, that's no irrevocable proof.
While digging for images of the Motel, I found the other article about its destruction, which has some more interesting info in it:

MALIBU WILL LOOSE ITS LITTLE BIT OF POLYNESIA TO PROGRESS
November 19, 1987|KENNETH J. GARCIA | Times Staff Writer

The Tiki heads and mock teak beds that fill the Tonga Lei motel and its Polynesian partner, Don the Beachcomber restaurant, will soon be scrapped to make way for a modern beachside inn next to the Malibu pier.

A Malibu mainstay for nearly three decades, the Tonga Lei is an aging remnant of the coastal community that existed before urban sprawl spread to Los Angeles County's beach towns and before Pacific Coast Highway was choked with daily commuter traffic.

The restaurant with the thatched-trim roof and the dated Tahitian motif was scheduled to close last Sunday and the nine-room motel will be razed in early December, according to Vickie Cooper, who owns the property along with her husband, Martin, and their partners, Skip and Lee Miser. Construction of the new motel is slated to be completed by early summer.

"We wanted to build a motel that the community could be proud of," said Cooper. "The building is nearly 30 years old, it's run-down and there's really no way to remodel it because of the way it was built. The place is tired."

The Tonga Lei opened in 1961 on a lot that was purchased for about $20,000 seven years earlier. Previously, the building contained the Drift Inn, a seafood restaurant, but the owner was inspired by an eatery in San Diego called the Bali Ha'i and decided to expand the property with a South Pacific flavor.

Cooper said a contest was held to name a new hotel and that a woman came up with the Tonga Lei tag, not realizing that her winning entry carried with it a $500 prize. She was later tracked down and given her check.

As with so many places in Malibu, the beachside property has been a common celebrity-sighting spot. Jayne Mansfield, the platinum blonde '50s pinup, attended the opening of the Tonga Lei, and the restaurant bar was the favorite hangout of the late television star David Janssen. More recently, the restaurant has been a popular haunt for Pepperdine University students and faculty.

"We've always had a very loyal following," said Skip Miser. "When we took over, one of the most difficult things we had to learn was how to build Polynesian. It wasn't easy."

When they bought the motel and restaurant in 1977, Miser said, they searched greater Los Angeles trying to find decorations appropriate to the Polynesian atmosphere. They found what they were looking for at a business in Glendale.

"It was the only place we saw where you could buy Tiki gods," Miser said. "They had about 50 different kinds."

Miser said the property has survived fires and floods from the Pacific storms that occasionally batter the coast, but was unable to stand up to years of use. The partners also said the original construction severely limits their ability to remodel. They also stand to make more money with the greatly expanded motel.

"This property is a piece of paradise, but there's no place for a Polynesian restaurant and hotel anymore," Cooper said. "The place has outlived its usefulness.

"Even though this wasn't the place for the rich and famous, a lot of people are very sad to see it torn down. Some people always considered it a hideaway. But Polynesian is no longer in in Southern California."

YUP, by 1987 it wasn't. Man, if I just would have started photographing Tiki temples in the early 80s, there was so much more still around then. It looks like they came upon Sea & Jungle, "the only place you could buy Tiki gods" in 1977, and O.A. and Whittier was too far away. And the fact that they were inspired by one of the Tiki power places, the Bali Hai, is a cool little snippet of info.

Ok here are some 1980 aerial shots of the address, Not really sure what I'm looking for but there are some parking lots and an A-frame type structure.

[ Edited by: Bora Boris 2010-10-31 23:33 ]

Thanks B-man, that was swift. Dang, that is hard to tell...Bongo will be better qualified to analyze these, as a builder-type. Looks like the number 2 photo is the one that shows it, and that the building next to the restaurant that might have a higher roofline and might be the motel is NOT attached, so that would blow away my theory....Ron?

Cool stuff but more questions than answers. I can't decipher anything from the aerial photos but the newspaper articles need to be addressed. Built in 1961. Movie released in 65 probably shot in 64 when the Tonga Lei was fairly new. No bushes or trees in the movie, but when the Coopers bought it in 77 they cut them down? There was the logo Tiki in 64/65 but it seems the Coopers bought Tikis From The Sea & Jungle shop in 77. My Theory: The Aloha Room entrance/Motel/landscaping is just to the South of the building as (not) seen in the menu renderings and movie and the Tiki seen in the photo & Bananbobs post was added in 77 or ? Looks like it had some Tiki style but embellished when the new owners saw the Bali Hai? I'm confused by all of this. Are the menu/matchbooks dated? No logo mugs?

Also 2 story motel with 9 rooms? 5 on the 1st floor and 4 on top? 9 over the restaurant? Tahitian decor out of style? the movie (Beach Ball) shows some interior scenes but appear to be a set. Would like to see photos of the area where the "dancing" was. Who is up for looking at all the episodes of the Rockford Files for more video?

Bad timing for Don The Beachcomber who bought the Tonga Lei & The Trade Winds in Oxnard about the same time and only lasted a couple of years at both locations. Help!

If someone please would let me use their time machine, I promise I won't touch or change anything, just have quick look, please!

bongofury - thanks for taking the time to do those screen-captures. I love seeing the real evidence of that logo tiki and sign.

From the days of its opening in 1961, the ads for the Tonga Lei all list the motor hotel along with the restaurant. I have a feeling that my black-and-white photo might depict a separate lounge at the hotel, completely unattached from the main restaurant.

The Rockford Files: Season 1 episode 3. The Kirkoff Case with Abe Vigoda and a creepy James Woods. Oh and part of the Tonga Lei Sign! :)

The Rockford Files: Season 1 episode 4. The Dark and Bloody Ground.

Thanks Midnite for the tip on these. :D

If anyone else can get a more in focus shot of the second one, please do.

9/14/14 Updated the first image with a better one.

[ Edited by: Bora Boris 2014-09-14 13:00 ]

Although I am a big fan of the show because of its Chandler-esque characters and the way it showed L.A., making it really the quintessential L.A. show on TV, I never paid attention WHERE his trailer/mobile home was actually located. Next to the Tonga Lei? Down a couple of lots? This blog gets into the specifics and places it by a restaurant called "The Sandcastle" (see replies):

http://www.cavalier92.com/anotherdelcoguy/2008/11/the-view-from-jim-rockfords-trailer.html

The irony is that not only (very much in L.A.style) none of the buildings around it seem to be left, even the BEACH has washed away to some degree!
I would love to see this episode, the very last of the series, which plays in Hawaii:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0688072/

On 2010-11-02 22:46, Bora Boris wrote:
If anyone else can get a more in focus shot of the second one, please do.

Bora Boris,

Oh my god, I think that the second photo is a shot of the Tonga Lei after it became Don the Beachcomber! The sign that has been added under the original Tonga Lei sign sure looks like a Don the Beachcomber sign to me.

Look at the shape and the lettering. We need a better screen grab to confirm the first visual evidence of the Don's transition.

Do you know what year that episode was shot? Based on the article posted previously in this thread, Don's moved in sometime after 1977.

I need this for my Don the Beachcomber locations thread!

DC

OK, I guess I jumped the gun a little on this one. I've got Don the Beachcomber history on the brain this week.

I found this info regarding the location of Rockford's trailer location on Wikpedia

In early episodes in the shows first season, the trailer is located in a crowded parking lot alongside the highway and near the ocean; for the rest of the series, the trailer is at Paradise Cove (address 29 Cove Road), adjacent to a pier and a restaurant.

So it looks like the episode the photo was taken from was the from the first year in 1974, well before Don the Beachcomber moved in. Damn.

DC

On 2010-01-17 20:09, bigbrotiki wrote:
We won't believe a word until you show us a still frame frame of that! :)

As promised Sven ....here's your proof .A vid clip instead of a still .

The film used only the name likeness "Tonga Lei" for the name of their sleazy bar- no tiki .

Good ol'e 80's .This B movie "Losin It " was originally titled "Tiajuana" was shot in 1981..sat on the shelf for two years and then Embassy pictures sold it to 20th Century Fox.I did not even know who Tom Cruise was at the time when he was on the set.He had only done The Outsiders and Taps .Film also stars ...Jackie Earle Haley and Shelly Long . This was only my second film I had any screen time.Scroll half way thru the clip, and check me out filling the rubber up with water Yes that's me ! I will try and follow up with a scene from the Tonga Lei.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwDyLtased0

Another matchbook style from the Tonga Lei spotted on ebay.

DC

Who doesn't love some 1965 Big Tiki Goodness on PCH?

From the book M a l i b u - A r c a d i a - P u b l i s h i n g . They did a nice job on the M a l i b u book but the Redondo Beach Pier b o o k stinks!
No need for this to show up in a Google search. :)

Great stuff Bora Boris!

Here is another peek at the sign from the Rockford Files "The Countess" episode. Really shows how close Rockford's trailer was to the restaurant site.

And a fuzzy image of a 1976 Malibu Phone Directory ad for the Tonga Lei.

DC

Nice photos guys.....Boris I guess we still have a mystery here as we thought this was the Tonga Lei spruced up but I don't think so...

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=43023&forum=1&hilite=sip%20n%20surf

Spotted this nice little take out menu from the Tonga Lei.

Like all good Chinese restaurants they ended up serving food to go.

Still looking for some evidence of the Don the Beachcomber presence at this place.

DC

A couple of ads from Tonga Lei.

An a better image of the Rockford Files screengrab with the sign in the background.

DC