Trader Vic's articles from Time Magazine

Happened across these by accident today:

"Polynesia at Dinnertime" March 31st, 1961

The restaurant's liquor list reads like a South Sea adventure. After an encounter with a White Witch (pure white Jamaica rum) or a Rangoon Ruby (vodka and cranberry juice), the drinker may well feel such a Suffering Bastard (rums, lime and liqueurs) that he will want to see Dr. Funk of Tahiti ("redolent of French rums and absinthe"). Actually, the author of these "Polynesian" cocktails has never roamed the South Seas. Nevertheless, salty, peg-legged Victor Bergeron, 58, has parlayed a flair for serving good food amid a supply of grass skirts, Tiki gods and outrigger canoes into the most successful chain of seaweed restaurants west of Suez: Trader Vic's.

Since the first Trader Vic's opened in Oakland, Calif., in 1938, Bergeron has set up another restaurant in San Francisco and manages seven others—three for the Hilton hotel chain (in New York, Chicago and Beverly Hills), four for Western Hotels (in Portland, Ore., Seattle, Denver, and one that opened last week in Vancouver, B.C.). This summer the Trader will start two more restaurants for Hilton, in Washington, D.C., and San Juan, will open a third, owned by himself, in Phoenix. There will also be a Trader Vic's in the new London Hilton. Last year, the nine Vies grossed more than $10 million, not counting the proceeds from Bergeron's lucrative sideline, Trader Vic Food Products Co.

Off with the Neck. Secret of Trader Vic Bergeron's success is his preference for South Sea atmosphere rather than culinary authenticity. "How are you going to make a pig in the ground in your restaurant?" asks Bergeron. "Furthermore, you can't eat real Polynesian food. It's the most horrible junk I've ever tasted."

Though his menu lists such exotic items as Bongo Bongo Soup, Javanese Sate and Bah-Mee, they are really American versions (or inventions) for American palates. "Take a Tahitian pudding made with arrowroot," says the Trader. "It's so tough you can throw it and use it as a handball. Or take a squab. In the average Chinese restaurant, that little fella comes out with his dead eyes staring you in the face. When the customer sees that naked head and the beak and the eyes, he wants no part of it. We chop the neck off it, barbecue it, and it's changed. And that's just what we've done with all the specialty food." Bergeron also serves French cooking, but refuses to promote it. "Why should I?" he asks. "I can make so much more money off the grass."

Hinky Dink's. The Trader does little to discourage the legend that his leg was snipped off by an unfriendly shark in the islands. But the story is as unreal as his menu. Born in California, he grew up in Oakland, where his parents ran a small grocery. At the age of six, a tuberculosis attack cost him his left leg; despite the handicap, Bergeron was so agile on his crutches that he played for his grammar school soccer team. He quit school at 16, two years later was able to buy his first wooden leg. For the next 13 years he bummed around from job to job, finally winding up at the end of Prohibition as a partner in a neighborhood bar. A year later, the partnership was dissolved.

With a $500 stake from his share of the bar, the Trader opened his first restaurant in Oakland, named it Hinky Dink's, was soon doing a good business. Early discovering the secret of atmosphere, he began to hang snowshoes and deer heads around the restaurant, picked up his nickname by his habit of selling curios right off the wall to customers—at a whopping profit. In search of more exotica, Bergeron made his first trip outside California. He traveled to the Caribbean, where he picked up a complete line of tropical drinks that could be efficiently potent without tasting much like booze at all. Back home, he was so impressed with the success of a Los Angeles Polynesian restaurant called Don the Beachcomber that he copied the idea, tore down his Hinky Dink's sign, reopened as Trader Vic's.

Each month, in search of new decorations and souvenirs, he picks through an incredible assortment of Polynesiana sent him by some of his most valuable employees—a team of genuine traders in Tahiti and Samoa. He himself has still not gotten beyond Honolulu.

From the Jan. 28th, 1980 issue, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan:

"In San Francisco, Victor Bergeron, owner of the 20-restaurant Trader Vic's chain, sent a cable to all members forbidding them to buy or sell Soviet vodka or caviar. Then he personally smashed his last six bottles of Stolichnaya vodka."

July 21st, 1967:

The maître d' at San Francisco's Trader Vic's restaurant was about to shut down for the night when somebody came up and said: "There's a little girl outside asking for something to eat." It was a pretty cute surprise when he went out and found British Prima Ballerina Margot Fonteyn, 48, along with Partner Rudolf Nureyev, 28, and seven friends, all clamoring for some rum and Chinese goodies after a performance of the touring Royal Ballet. Two hours later, the merrymakers danced off into the night—and now it was the San Francisco police department's turn to be surprised. At 3 a.m. cops answered a call to turn off a noisy hippie party at a pad in Haight-Ashbury, chased the gang up to the rooftops, and beheld Rudi lying prone among the hippies on one roof, Dame Margot tucked away on an adjoining rooftop. That sort of ended the party, except for a trip to the station house, where Rudi screamed "You are all children!" as the photographers came swarming around—then back to work the next night, dancing Paradise Lost.

Jan 14th, 1966:

Chef René Verdon quit the White House kitchen rumbling that California wines are très ordinaires and Lyndon's favorite dishes are fit only for Him. That was too much for California-born Restaurateur Victor Bergeron, 63, better known as Trader Vic for his string of 13 Polynesian eateries around the U.S. He forked over $3,612 to buy a full page in San Francisco's Examiner & Chronicle to baste René in an open letter. A sampling: "By what stretch of the imagination do you think that French cooking is the only cuisine in the world? It happens that a great many people throughout the country enjoy beets with vinegar sauce. It's about time you Frenchmen start to look around."

Oct 24th, 1960:

The Roquefort Association is not a gourmet society. It is the organizer of a volunteer group of private eyes made up of cheese importers, distributors and salesmen. They keep a constant lookout in restaurants and stores to see that no waiter palms off less than true blue Roquefort. Genuine Roquefort is a trademarked blue cheese made from ewe's milk and aged in caves near Roquefort, France. The association's amateur sleuths inspect grocery counters, sample Roquefort salad dressing in restaurants, keep a sharp nose to customs lists of cheese imports.

Since the Roquefort bloodhounds went to work 30 years ago, they have won more than 40 consent decrees against phony Roquefort salad dressings, brought a dozen suits against cow's-milk cheese passing as Roquefort. Two months ago the association won a U.S. district court temporary injunction against an importer's "Roquefort" cheese made in Hungary. Last week it won a satisfying victory: a consent decree and damages of $1,250 from San Francisco's famed Trader Vic restaurant for putting Danish blue cheese into Roquefort dressing. "Trader Vic's can afford it," explains the association's boss, New York Lawyer Frank O. Fredericks, "but if most restaurants had to fork up $1,250, they'd have to close their doors. It will serve as a dandy warning."

First I've heard of this- in an article about Don Ho from Aug 25th, 1967:

Today business has picked up to the point where Don earns $500,000 a year. He owns a record company, real estate as far east as Salt Lake City, two supper clubs in addition to Honey's. He has just bought out Restaurateur Trader Vic on the island, will expand the chain as Trader Ho's.

(Did this happen?)

Great post Martiki! Thanks

"Furthermore, you can't eat real Polynesian food. It's the most horrible junk I've ever tasted."

I guess ol' Vic was never one to mince words or worry about offending someone!

Thanks for the post Martin. Really good stuff. I love to read contemporary reviews and articles. And how did you happen to come across all this "by accident"?

Yeah, good Trader tales, thank you! As far as I know, Bergeron's separation from the Waikiki Trader Vic's happened pretty early (when did it open?), through a disagreement with the owner, which was Spence Weaver, who through his Spencecliff company ran many Hawaiian Tiki joints (Tahitian Lanai, various South Seas, etc..).
Maybe Don Ho put a bid in at one point, but it never happened. Trader Ho would have been a funny name though!

On 2007-01-11 17:51, martiki wrote:

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July 21st, 1967:

The maître d' at San Francisco's Trader Vic's restaurant was about to shut down for the night when somebody came up and said: "There's a little girl outside asking for something to eat." It was a pretty cute surprise when he went out and found British Prima Ballerina Margot Fonteyn, 48, along with Partner Rudolf Nureyev, 28, and seven friends, all clamoring for some rum and Chinese goodies after a performance of the touring Royal Ballet. Two hours later, the merrymakers danced off into the night—and now it was the San Francisco police department's turn to be surprised. At 3 a.m. cops answered a call to turn off a noisy hippie party at a pad in Haight-Ashbury, chased the gang up to the rooftops, and beheld Rudi lying prone among the hippies on one roof, Dame Margot tucked away on an adjoining rooftop. That sort of ended the party, except for a trip to the station house, where Rudi screamed "You are all children!" as the photographers came swarming around—then back to work the next night, dancing Paradise Lost.

This one is particularly good Martin. I relayed it to Mrs. Royale knowing that the man she works for knew both Vic Bergeron and Margot Fonteyn.
Turns out he recalls this well... He actually took the crew to Vic's the night before and introduced them. Seems they couldn't get enough and went back the next night for more... He is also the one who got the call at 4am to come downtown and bail them out!
Them's were the days...

Aloha,
:tiki:

On 2007-01-12 23:30, Tiki Royale wrote:

This one is particularly good Martin. I relayed it to Mrs. Royale knowing that the man she works for knew both Vic Bergeron and Margot Fonteyn.
Turns out he recalls this well... He actually took the crew to Vic's the night before and introduced them. Seems they couldn't get enough and went back the next night for more... He is also the one who got the call at 4am to come downtown and bail them out!
Them's were the days...

Aloha,
:tiki:

How great to get more story! Thanks for adding! :)