KAHIKI Columbus, ohio tiki bar restaurant. Lee Henry, The catalog

Look for my article/interview with Bill Sapp in the "new" issue of Tiki Magazine.

Should be out very soon!

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

On 2008-04-14 22:23, Hula Cat wrote:
Aloha, The Kahiki book is still being written ..some adjustment period has led to a new (but just as dedicated)approach to it's edification...so sweet to see the love still lives on...Hula Cat

On 2008-04-15 11:59, Jeff Central wrote:
Look for my article/interview with Bill Sapp in the "new" issue of Tiki Magazine.

Should be out very soon!

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

So much good news in such a short period of time! :D

[ Edited by: Ratzaroony 2008-04-15 19:51 ]

Hey Jeff Bill loved it!!
Great work.

Yes Jeff, great research and image excavation, thank you!

On 2008-05-12 06:27, tikiskip wrote:
Hey Jeff Bill loved it!!
Great work.

Thanks tikiskip!!!

Great photo!! We need to send that to Nick!

Thanks for the nice compliment Bigbro. That was only half of the article. I have LOTS of extra pictures too that didn't get used including the picture of the unrealized Kahiki that was planned for the riverfront district in downtown Columbus. :o

Bill's face says it all. :)

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

[ Edited by: jeff central 2008-05-13 08:30 ]

Fantastic article Jeff! I particularly enjoyed the pre-opening glamour shot of the interior.

On 2008-03-30 14:59, bigbrotiki wrote:
Wow, from when is that bowl? From the 70s? It's the only Moai I have seen from there that looks somewhat like the their artwork.

ha - fooled you!!.. and of all people, too !! ....

Sven...how soon we forget....the bowl is a recent ..the reason the moai look so authentic to the logo of kahiki....is because i made the goddamn things!!! yes, those were my sculpts that someone stole and made into ceramics to be used as feet for bowls and for necklaces.....remember all those necklaces at the kahiki closing?? I used to produce those resin ones exclusively for kahiki for about 2 years prior to closing.....anyway, i went off about this topic a few years back on tiki central....i'm not gonna rehash it again...just wanted to point it out so that there is no confusion as to if it is vintage or not.....

On 2008-04-07 20:30, tikiskip wrote:
Here's a postcard that someone fixed up for me.
Can you tell the three superimposed people?

heh, that is classic skip! :D

Yeah JD I love that card too.

Hey Tipsy what took so long?
I knew you would spot that right away.
They made some for the Tropical Bistro
but the place went out before they could use them.
I'm trying to get my hands on one now.
That one is from one of the owners collection.

On 2008-05-22 17:08, tikiskip wrote:
Yeah JD I love that card too.

Hey Tipsy what took so long?
I knew you would spot that right away.
They made some for the Tropical Bistro
but the place went out before they could use them.
I'm trying to get my hands on one now.
That one is from one of the owners collection.

I remember one of the sweet Kahiki outlet store ladies showing me one of the prototypes of that bowl (which I thought was very cool!) & saying that they were going to make them, but the ceramicist was having some issues at home, so they weren't sure when they were going to have them. Alas, circumstances changed & the outlet closed before they ever showed-up there.... :(

On 2008-05-22 17:08, tikiskip wrote:
Yeah JD I love that card too.

Hey Tipsy what took so long?
I knew you would spot that right away.
They made some for the Tropical Bistro
but the place went out before they could use them.
I'm trying to get my hands on one now.
That one is from one of the owners collection.

skip-

i made a big stink about these awhile back on here when they first appeared......i called michael tsao to tear him a new one about selling these in the kahiki outlet shop.....the details of which were chronicled in an earlier post a few years back....we came to an understanding.....then he died 2 weeks later.......anyway, i basically let it go and since then i haven't seen the necklaces or bowls for sale on ebay or anywhere....which is good.

it would have been nice to at least have gotten a bowl or something for my hard work and trouble...

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2008-05-22 18:44 ]

I will see if I can get you one Dave.
Did not know that the Kahiki was the ones who made
this bowl.

You did a great job on the Moai necklace.

I too called michael tsao a week before he died.
He wanted one of my videos of the Kahiki last night party.
Did end up giving a video to his wife.

On 2008-05-23 04:51, tikiskip wrote:
I will see if I can get you one Dave.
Did not know that the Kahiki was the ones who made
this bowl.

You did a great job on the Moai necklace.

I too called michael tsao a week before he died.
He wanted one of my videos of the Kahiki last night party.
Did end up giving a video to his wife.

that would be cool....i believe they were made by an outsourced ceramicist in ohio..I think tiki central's bdler3 had something to do with it....haven't seen him post here since he was hawking those things on ebay a couple years back...

On 2008-05-23 08:06, Tipsy McStagger wrote:

bdler3 had something to do with it...

IIRC i believe bdler3 was somehow notified that his behavior regarding distribution of kahiki artifacts was not taken kindly, and afterwards his interest in said activities waned...

Yep, made a trip up that way a few years ago to take some pictures of the "infamous Walgreen's" and picked up a couple of Kahiki artifacts from him for a project brewing down below the Mason-Dixon Line. He seemed pretty intimidated by some flack he was getting. I never heard anything more from him after that.

TAAA DAAAAAA!!!

Here they are...some of the original master casts that the molds were made from......these are the biological parents of all the kahiki necklaces i made, out there in the world..... a few still have their pour spouts attached.

cool. I want one !!

Columbus, Ohio February 2001 Atlantic Monthly

How do we distinguish the historic from the sentimental?

by Wayne Curtis

The Tiki Wars

Last June, I had dinner at the Kahiki Supper Club, in Columbus, Ohio. The food was memorable, although not necessarily in a good way. Some meals were served in carved pineapples; others crackled with eyebrow-singeing flames. (The Columbus Dispatch once wrote that "the Kahiki is one of the few restaurants in Columbus in which food can injure you.") From time to time a nearby table would order up a four-person flaming drink, which was delivered amid the sound of gongs by an exotic "mystery girl"—a ritual that, according to the menu, "symbolizes an ancient sacrifice, which reportedly stopped volcanoes from erupting."

Illustration by Marcellus Hall

I entered the Kahiki, said to be modeled after a New Guinea men's meetinghouse, between a pair of twenty-foot-high Easter Island idols with flames spouting from their heads. Inside, after crossing a low bridge and passing through a damp grotto, I wandered into a series of dining rooms filled with thatched "dining huts." The main room, a conical structure with a towering ceiling, was presided over by an eighty-foot-high tiki goddess with glowing red eyes and a fireplace for a mouth.

No surface was unmolested. In and around the dining huts were totems, carved masks, woven grass mats, parts of ersatz shipwrecks, lamps fashioned from seashells, fountains spewing luridly tinted water, adult beverages served in skull-shaped mugs, and an assortment of lavishly varnished blowfish. Localized "thunderstorms," complete with "lightning," passed through every twenty minutes or so, drenching the tract of rain forest outside my dining-hut window.

Built in 1961, the Kahiki wasn't the first tiki restaurant in the nation (that honor goes to Don the Beachcomber's, in Hollywood, which opened in 1934), but it may have been the most elaborate. Last June, The New York Times dubbed the Kahiki "the grandest and best-preserved of a nearly extinct form of culinary recreation." Otto von Stroheim, the publisher of Tiki News, a newsletter devoted to Polynesian pop, once called the Kahiki "the first or second most important tiki restaurant in the world." In 1997 the Kahiki joined the nearly 70,000 other properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places. "I don't like to do firsts and biggests and bests and lasts," Beth Savage, an architectural historian who evaluates properties for the register, told me. "But I can say with certainty that this is the only tiki listed."

I had gone to Columbus last summer because Walgreens, the drugstore chain, had recently announced its intention to build a 15,000-square-foot store on the property occupied by the Kahiki. This plan, of course, would require the demolition of the restaurant, a fact that did not go unnoticed locally. A grassroots group (it preferred the appellation "grass-skirt group") circulated an e-mail petition to save the Kahiki. The Dispatch was filled with passionate letters from heartbroken residents. The newspaper editorialized against the closing.

All to no avail. It's an honor to be listed on the National Register, but, as with the social register, inclusion suggests more power than it actually confers. On August 26 the Kahiki served its final meal and then locked its hexagonal front door for good. The building was demolished in November.

I realize that I'm hardly alone in saying I hate it when drugstore chains raze cool old buildings and replace them with boxy, harshly lit stores selling eyeliner and blister packs of batteries. But I found myself mustering a bit of sympathy for Walgreens in this fight. The Kahiki was, after all, a fake Polynesian restaurant that served mediocre, dangerous food and sat on an unlovely commercial strip at the frayed edge of the city. Its loss didn't really rank with the destruction of a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece or a Civil War battlefield. Then I called Nathalie Wright, the National Register coordinator at the Ohio Historic Preservation Office. She was the person responsible for nominating the Kahiki for the National Register, and when I asked her what the big deal was, she made an articulate case.

Placed in its socio-historical context, Wright argued, the Kahiki vividly recalled a time when America inhabited a sort of South Seas Camelot. Songs from the movie musical South Pacific (1958) were on everyone's lips, Hawaii had joined the union as the fiftieth state just two years before (1959), and Elvis was starring in Blue Hawaii (1961). If historic buildings serve as cairns that mark our path as we march resolutely forward through time, we should preserve places like the Kahiki in the event we ever want to go back.

Furthermore, Wright said, tiki bars were among the original theme restaurants, dating from a time when Americans began to evince an apparently lasting appetite for the artificial over the real. And with Mount Vernon, for example, now sharing space on the National Register with the likes of the Kahiki, it becomes harder for American families to distinguish the genuine from its simulacrum. On a wall near the Kahiki's men's room I found a 1995 article from Fortune in which Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disney, who went to college nearby, revealed that he had attended his first drive-in movie in Columbus and enjoyed meals at the Kahiki. If there's a better contemporary version of "George Washington slept here," I don't know it.

That we're now trying to save the very places we once derided is nothing new. Queen Anne-style houses and Craftsman-style bungalows followed similar tracks: they were icons of an era which fell out of fashion and were subject to ridicule and large-scale demolition before being "discovered," dusted off, and placed on pedestals. "I call this the grandmother principle," the architect Robert Venturi has said. "You hate your mother's wedding gown in your parents' wedding photograph, but you love your grandmother's wedding gown in your grandparents' wedding photograph."

Venturi made this observation last October in Philadelphia, at a conference titled "Preserving the Recent Past." The gathering, of some 850 preservationists, engineers, and architects, was largely given over to arcane technical matters—for example, how to maintain glass-curtain walls and acoustic-tile ceilings. But a more philosophical question was on everyone's mind: How do we preserve the past when faced with accelerating cycles of building and demolition? Today we destroy buildings before they've ripened. We don't allow ourselves the luxury of waiting to evaluate their historical importance. If we are to preserve the best, we need somehow to flag our landmarks for exemption from this hasty winnowing.

This is a complicated matter. Not only is it a daunting task to persuade the members of the public that buildings constructed in their lifetime are historic and worth saving, but also it requires that we sort the truly historic from the merely nostalgic.

"There's a real danger that sentiment can overtake rationality, and preservationists can be made to look ridiculous if we're not careful," says David De Long, a professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. "All of us have a sentimental attachment to these things. One of the great responsibilities of those of us in preservation is to edit. It's a big responsibility. The easiest way to avoid it is to be against any destruction."

But what to save? Early strip malls? Subdivisions filled with tract homes? Drive-in theaters? White Castle hamburger stands? (One paper presented in Philadelphia was titled "The Ubiquitous Parking Garage: Worthy of Preservation?") After all, these are icons of the twentieth century, much as canals and carriage houses and Richardsonian Romanesque train depots are icons of the nineteenth. Isn't it important to preserve the best architectural examples of our era for our grandchildren? How do we decide which are the best?

Before the wrecking ball came in, the Kahiki's owners removed much of the interior and put it in storage. Plans call for the restaurant to reopen within two years, in a better location downtown, with the original interior. That's the good news. The bad news is that the new Kahiki certainly won't have the comfortable and dusky patina of the original place. (And it will lose its National Register listing.) It's easy to imagine the Kahiki reborn as just another "eatertainment" venue—a Rainforest Cafe with varnished blowfish.

Of course, its resurrection will also raise the question of whether the new Kahiki should one day be preserved as an example of the pervasive influence of retro kitsch on American culture. This, I'm happy to say, will be up to the next generation to decide.

The URL for this page is http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200102/curtis.

On 2007-10-28 11:40, tikiskip wrote:
Here is a menu from the Kahiki.
This menu was never used at the Kahiki.
It was a new lunch idea that they never put in action.

Today I was at the Springfield, Ohio antique malls and I found a copy of that menu. The guy who was selling them had a lot of menus, some of which had writing on them, so I'm thinking he was the printer. Anyways, the menus are the same, except mine has different prices and certain other menu items, that were then changed in Skip's copy. I thought you guys might like to see what else might have appeared on the menu.

PS - If you want to see all the differences, Skip's pictures are on page 11. I didn't want to quote them all because this post is long enough as it is :wink:

[ Edited by: Ratzaroony 2008-07-13 13:16 ]

[ Edited by: Ratzaroony 2008-07-13 21:17 ]

So it looks like they did use the menu after all.

Nice find Ratz! Looks like a markup for a menu revision.. From what it looks like compared to t-skip's, perhaps the Final Proof before going to press!! All the changes written on your's are 'fixed' in John's, so maybe the menu was printed but never used? Wonder who's penmanship that is?!?!

Here is a light from the Kahiki.
There was not a working fixture in it so
I fixed it up for the owner of this light.

Ratzaroony,

the luncheon menu you purchased was in fact used at the Kahiki.

The changes in prices and the writing is that of Bill Sapp.

Nice find! - umeone

Very cool! Thank you for the information! :D

Here is a picture I thought needed to be here.
Pic from Trader Jeff.
Thanks Jeff!!!
This is Phil Kientz.
He did the Moai and other work at the Kahiki.
I think he also did the Rolling Rock label and a statue in
German village.
The last photo is his letter head.
Address looks to be...
Philip E Kientz 820 SO 5th ST HI 3 5639 Columbus 6 Ohio

That glint of light was not on the second photo.
It came when I took a photo of the photo.
Kinda freaky.

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2012-02-23 16:16 ]

You're welcome skip!!

I love that pic!! :)

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

Here is a picture that I got from one of the Bistro boys.
It is an old ad for the Kahiki.
Check out the lights in this room!!
This picture was taken in the backgammon in the basement
of the Kahiki.

Aaaah! Columbus natives practicing the ancient Polynesian tradition of Backgammon! :D

On 2009-02-22 11:32, bigbrotiki wrote:
Aaaah! Columbus natives practicing the ancient Polynesian tradition of Backgammon! :D

A few years later this area would be the site of the first Polynesian Discoteque!!! :lol:

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

On 2009-02-24 11:55, Jeff Central wrote:

A few years later this area would be the site of the first Polynesian Discoteque!!! :lol:

Which I once stumbled into quite by accident!

OH SO WRONG! Just WRONG!

Let's just say the mirrored ball was probably the strangest thing ever to hang from any Kahiki ceiling.

"You're getting more interesting by the drink!" -Pepe le Tiki

[ Edited by: Sabina 2009-03-03 16:34 ]

Here is some pictures of a hut top from the Kahiki.
It had a light in the middle of it.
The lens for the light is made of rocks, glass and shells.
I just gave this to someone who I know will give it a good home.
Hope to show pic's when it is up.

Skip, do you know who did all the resin art in the Kahiki? The bar top of the piano bar and both of the owners desks tops were great works of fantasy native and nautical art.

I have never seen The bar top of the piano bar.
Do you have a picture?
I do not know who did them.
Will try to find out.
You are right, the desks are way cool.
I wish Greg would post a picture of Lee Henrys desk.

I just met the Kahikis first bartender Bob Kost.
Will try to get more story from him.

Adding to the catalog: a Kahiki Zombie Slee

[ Edited by: wentiki 2009-05-07 11:43 ]

[ Edited by: wentiki 2018-09-02 03:45 ]

That is a super rarity, never seen one in person. Was that made in the basement?

Same material as the ashtrays, glazed. Also, check out the original front door handle.

Wentiki, I am so jealous :)

Wendy that is not the one you showed me is it?
Yours had more of a glazed face than that one.
That face looks like day glo paint.

I just got a pineapple sleeve as well from the first Kahiki
bartender.
Will post pic later.
Oh, and a bar and four MINT chairs.

On 2007-09-29 13:22, tikiskip wrote:
Here we have Tom Iaquinta left and Hermon Leitwein.
Tom worked for Mr Leitwein, And later became
Building and maintenance superintendent.
One of Toms duties was to light the two 15 foot moai
in front of the Kahiki.
BY HAND!!
He would use a soup can on a pole to light the gas torches.
Tom also helped make the ashtrays and other ceramic mold
type things.
He said those ceramic things were made of a material called
pour rock.
Mr Leitwein Also said that the first table lamps had sented
oil lamps and were not electric.
Mr Leitwein turned 84 on the 22 of September 2007.

Ok I knew there was somthing about that sleeve on this thread.
The POUR ROCK part.
Can you see if yours is plaster or a grey ( pour rock) material?
The lamp I have are made of Pour Rock.

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2007-09-29 21:01 ]

Yes, pour rock. The bottom really gives it away when the felt is partially pulled back. Here are a few more pictures. It has this amazing buttery smoothness and patina all over, especially at the rim and inside.

You're right, my flash makes that green look odd.

[ Edited by: wentiki 2018-09-02 04:04 ]

A real rarity because it is not marked Kahiki. Glad to know it exists!

I've had this awhile... I didn't see another posted to this "catalog".

(Oh, and I know of another of these at a shop if someone's interested... priced at $100 Yikes!)

[ Edited by: Bongo Bungalow 2009-05-08 08:10 ]

Picked this card up today and thought I'd post it here. I don't seem to remember seeing this one posted on TC before but I could well be wrong. It's a big one 6" by 8". Hand dated 1966 0n the back. I have a couple of questions. Who carved the large idols out front (not the Moai) and what became of them and what was the small building in the left foreground used for. Thanks.

close-up of Tikis.

Smaller building.

"Anyone who has ever seen them is thereafter haunted as if by a feverish dream" Karl Woermann"

[ Edited by: uncle trav 2009-05-25 14:54 ]

t I would like to be able to search trader vic the catalog and see every item they had. Or kon tiki, And so on. Lots of photos. Then if you get an item, you would have a reference guide. Much like BOT or Tiki quest. Just the on line version. So who wants to start trader vic's?

On 2009-05-25 14:47, uncle trav wrote:
I have a couple of questions. Who carved the large idols out front (not the Moai) and what became of them and what was the small building in the left foreground used for.

Trav, when I went on my photo safari with Jeff Berry in January of 1996, there was only one of the Moai left. I assume they were carved by Jack Hite, they guy that carved that built-into-the-desk Tiki you see in the BOT. Don't know what happened to them. The lil Japanese Teahouse, as far as I recall, was just a utility building, lit up as a roadside sign at night.

Thanks for the history Sven. Wish I could have been on that tour in 1996.

It was 2 1/2 days of Tiki heaven. We could freely explore and roam and pic angles for my photos, Jeff would help me set up lights, and we would shoot. After a couple of hours when we got tired we would pick a booth to rest and they would lavish food and drink on us. Then on with the show. We spent half a day alone in the upstairs offices going thru their files and drawers for photos and ephemera for the BOT. Then we went on to Chicago, to the Kona Kai and Hala Kahiki. :)