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Tiki Central / General Tiki

Kona Lanes (Costa Mesa, CA) update

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Per the Orange County Register 4/8/03, Local, pg.2...

Although it's now unclear if a new Kohl's store will be built on the site, and although Costa Mesa Mayor Karen Robinson would prefer to see the bowling center stay, Kona Lanes is going away.

The property owners, C.J. Seagerstrom & Sons, have decided that Kona's month-to-month lease will end as soon as the end of May. They blame it on "the market and lack of demand in that location."

Kona Lanes opened in 1958. No tikis, but some great mid-century quasi-PolyPop architecture nonetheless.

Those who want to bowl a few frames before demolition should move fast. It's located just south of Adams Ave. on Harbor Blvd. in Costa Mesa, CA. (Beware the "Bright Blue M-F-ers" in the lounge!)

Chris (who is bummed about all this)

SpaceAgeCity.com

Chris, I don't know if you saw this or not.
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=2867&forum=6&23

Nope. I didn't see that. I gotta start using the "search" function before I waste bandwidth on redundant posts. Sorry.

As far as Kona Lanes is concerned, I'm (of course) sad to see it go. On the other hand, it's been dying in pieces for years. First the day care room and coffee shop closed. Then the landscaping started to lose ground. A few years ago, a truck backed into an outrigger beam on the south side of the building - Rather than repair it, they just sawed off the ends of ALL The outrigger beams!

I also wonder if Kona Lanes once had more tiki theming. (There was a place that sold tikis at the same intersection back in the 1950s and/or 1960s, so I'd be surprised if a few didn't migrate to Kona.) Anyway, if such decorative elements ever existed, they were long gone by the 1980s.

None of this changes the fact that tearing the place down is wrong. But I'm not exactly surprised to see it happen.

CJ

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