Urban Archeology: The Polynesian - Salt Lake City, Utah

Got this on Ebay last month - anyone know anything this place? There is a "Touch of Polynesia" on 1110 West Wenco Drive, also "The Polynesian Experience" on 225 7th Avenue in Salt Lake City.....

More importantly - who WAS Bunny Chan?????

Great one, Tang!

Never heard of it, though. Salt Lake City must have been a little hotbed of Polynesian Pop. I've got a matchbook and letterhead from "The Hawaiian" and a matchbook from "The Beachboy". Both nice tiki establishments. I'll post pics soon.

Sabu

I think there were a lot of Tiki temples in Salt Lake City and I once was told one of the reasons for that. Apparently, there was (still is?) a large Samoan community there. A friend of mine had a Samoan chieftain for a step-father. He said that when family came to visit– which was frequently– they would all go to Polynesian restaurants for dinner. When there were really big family function they would host the "luau" celebration. They would roast a pig, the whole nine yards. My friend said he and his brother had to learn the slap dance and the fire dance and would perform them at these family get-togethers. Kinda' funny for a little white guy originally from New England.

Tangaroa, is it Bunny Chan, or Benny Chan?

-Duke

Crud! I could swear it is Bunny Chan - but looking at it now it looks like Benny! Of course I left it at work - so I'll have to wait until Monday to check it again....

On 2005-03-04 18:00, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
Salt Lake City must have been a little hotbed of Polynesian Pop. I've got a matchbook and letterhead from "The Hawaiian"

Maybe Benny Chan was the cousin of Johnny Quong (!?) :) , who ran the Hawaiian. See the menu on page 157 of the BOT. As I recently pointed out, that menu designer must have also done the Pub Tiki menu:

The ornamental border is the same, and the "Asian" typeface, yellow on black background, looks alike. PLus the cool concept of turning the "Y" in "Yum Yum Room" into a Martini glass is mirrored in the use of Tikis as the letter "I" in "Pub Tiki".

Johnny expanded his "Quikee Chickee" Drive In restaurant at 2920 Highland drive into the Hawaiian. It seems to have had a nice A-frame entrance, and the octagonal Yum Yum Room on the 1st floor.
Johnny also owned the TIKI HUT, home of the Captain's Table, in downtown at 54 W 2nd Street in Salt Lake, . I have never seen anything from that place!

Chris, that is a damn fine placemat, wonder how the menu looked.

I have a menu from Johnny's Tiki Hut, that has a photo on the back of the A-frame of the Hawaiian. I'll take some pics and post photos later. I hadn't heard of the Polynesian, nice find !

On 2005-03-04 18:00, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
Salt Lake City must have been a little hotbed of Polynesian Pop.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the Mormon Church's strong presence throughout Polynesia. Paul Theroux said that you can tell if an island's people are Polynesian (vs Melanesian or Micronesian) by the existence of local Mormon Churches. Plus, they do own and run the Polynesian Cultural Center.

Here's a matchbook showing two of Johnny Quong's establishments in Salt Lake City. On one side is "The Hawaiian"

And on the other side is "The Beachboy", also owned by Johnny Quong.

This is one of the nicer matchbooks in my collection, as the inside is like a mini drink-menu, showing some of the mugs used at these two restaurants:

Finally, here's the letterhead for Johnny Quong's "The Hawaiian". Clearly they're copying the lettering style from the Hawaiian Village in Hawaii and Tampa.

So far that makes 5 tiki establishments we know of in Salt Lake City:

Benny Chan's "Touch of Polynesia" at 1110 West Wenco Drive
Benny Chan's "The Polynesian Experience" at 225 7th Avenue
Johnny Quong's "The Hawaiian" at 2920 Highland Drive
Johnny Quong's "The Tiki Hut" at 54 W 2nd Street
Johnny Quong's "The Beach Boy" at 9th South and Main

Can't wait to see Puamana's menu.

Sabu

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy on 2005-03-05 18:28 ]

Tres cool, folks!

Well heck - it is BENNY Chan.....
Oops!

Sabu, that matchcover with the drink pics is great ! I also hadn't seen anything from the Beach Boy before. Here's pics of the Johnny's Tiki Hut dinner menu :

Front:

Back:

Closer view of delivery cars for the Tiki Hut:

A-frame of the Hawaiian, with their delivery cars:

Inside back page of menu, with photo of architect's model for the Hawaiian :

That menu is amazing!!!!! Thanks for sharing....

Tiki Take Out!
I love it.

Oh My God!

Tiki Ford Mustangs and Tiki Ford Falcons. Johnny Quong is my new hero!

If only Sven had access to this photo when he was putting together the BOT. It really deserves a place within those hallowed pages.

Thanks so much for posting that menu, Puamana.

F#@& YEAH! That's gotta go into the Witco book! Mimi, I will send you the Home Delivery Menu I have, you deserve it for your collection. I wish the pic of the delivery trucks on p. 157 would have been bigger, too, you really have to use a magnifying glass to see the Tiki grilles.
The Ku on the cover is swiped from a 1956 United Airlines menu.

Wonder what the Tiki Hut building looked like..
My home delivery menu says:
...at The Captain's Table, the dining room built like a ship at Johnny's Tiki Hut.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki on 2005-03-07 17:20 ]

The Ku on the cover is swiped from a 1956 United Airlines menu.

I have a mug from Quong's Hawaiian. It's the larger style "Mainlander" mug which, like Tiki Bob's signature mug, I thought was an exclusive design for that establishment. Then again, the Mainlander mug is just a deivative of the Witco fountain, eh?

midnite

Right. We refer to this as the mysterious "Tiki chain of Transmission".

It would be an interesting undertaking (for someone) to draw up a family tree of swiped Tiki Designs, like:

Fang Mask---Tiki Bob (by Alec Yuill Thornton)---Elvis Mug---Bali Hai N.O. mug

AND, as an in depth version of the Poly Pop Evolution chart, WHO was inspired by WHOM in the founding of their establishments, like:

Don The Beachcomber---Mai Kai---Kahiki, Columbus & South Pacific, Hallandale

...and so on.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki on 2005-03-07 17:13 ]

I'm not sure if this was a menu cover or ? from The Hawaiian.......home of the Yum Yum Room!

wow! what a line up of delievery cars and vans. Must of really been a busy place in it's heyday. Very interesting tread.

[ Edited by: exotica59 on 2005-03-08 07:15 ]

Thanks Ron. Yup that's the menu I have, whose cover ended up in the BOT...got it through Otto. Now you can appreciate what is NOT in the BOT:
For the beginning of the lay-out, I selected approximately 1000 images...and had to edit them down to 600. (Of these 600, about 400 are vintage, while almost 200 are my photographs). The 400 others were details like the rest of this menu, which we all like, but that I just could not cram in there.

Here's an Oct. 1964 ad for The Polynesian :down:

Here's a postcard I have from the Polynesian in Salt Lake City.

DC

Another postcard of the great entrance at the Polynesian.

DC

Here is the menu and the little take out menu

Pa'akiki,

That picture in the ad is awesome! Never seen the outside of the building, what a great A-Frame and sign. Another fleet of decked out delivery vehicles in Salt Lake to.

The girl on the menu looks like the same girl from the postcard and the ad?

Thanks for posting.

DC

Yes, maybe she's the wife of the owner.

GREAT looking place too.

Found this great ad for the Polynesian. Looks like a classic Tiki palace complete with realistic rain and thunderstorms.

And an ad for the tenth anniversary of the restaurant.

Here is a matchbook from the Polynesian I spotted on ebay.

The back advertises the China Food Kitchen which is also shown on the ad that Uncle Trav posted. This must have been the take out/delivery service part of the Polynesian.

DC

Here is an rare ad for the Polynesian at the Chinafood Kitchen that PTD recently posted in Tiki Finds.

Nice find PTD! Anything on the back of this?

DC

So as we rush around this holiday shopping season, lets dream of this!

DC

I picked a nice matchcover from the Polynesian for some better scans.

DC

A nice place-mat from the Polynesian spotted for sale on "The Bay" a while back.

DC

Another ad from the Polynesian with Bonni and Benny.

Looks like Benny Chan also opened a Chinese restaurant called the Ming.

DC

Here is an ad for our snowbound east coast Ohana - Is cold weather getting you down? Dine in a Tropical Splendor!

And Benny..

DC

I have always wondered about the possible tie in between Benny Chan, who owned the Chinafood Kitchen and the Polynesian, and Johnny Quong who owned the Tiki Hut and the Beachboy among others. Well, it turns out that Johnny Quong originally started the Polynesian (called the Polynesian Room)and the Chinafood Kitchen. Here is an ad from 1961 listing all of Johnny's restaurants, with the Tiki Hut just about to open.

1961 ad for Johnny's Polynesian Room - looks like Johnny used the old rain on the roof indoor storm trick.

1962 ad for Johnny's Polynesian Room and the Tiki Hut.

In 1963 Benny Chang took over the Polynesian Room and re-branded it as the Polynesian. Here is an ad from the Grand Opening in August, 1963. You can see the new Polynesian spear sign on the front of the building.

An here is Benny's story. He was the manager chef at the Chinafood Kitchen and hooked up with his old boss from Ely's Hotel Nevada to purchase the place. They don't mention Johnny Quong so I wonder if it was a hostile takeover!

From 1963 forward it was Benny and Bonni running the show.

Cool stuff from Salt Lake City.

DC