TAHITI MICKS -defunct, Alamo, CA (restaurant)

Name:TAHITI MICKS -defunct
Type:restaurant
Street:Market Plaza
City:Alamo
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:VE 7-9020
Status:defunct

Description:
I found a front-strike matchbook from this place Tahiti Mick's.

Here is the image;

Wow, what a fantastic, classic piece - in design, name, and font! Actually, it is SO classic, with its name and backwater location, one might suspect it would be a modern mock-up, for a T-shirt design or something.

But the map rang a bell in my brain archive, here is its later incarnation:

A more Tiki Modern design, which I like much also, but Mick really is the shtick!

Mr. Smiley,

Great find, love that matchbook.

Bigbro,

Excellent memory as usual. Kind of amazing that a little Tiki joint out in the middle of nowhere had a couple of different lives.

DC

I think it illustrates the two-fold whammy that created the "Tiki-trend":

On one hand the CORPORATE side: In the mid- to late 50s, several big hotel chains decided they had to have a Polynesian restaurant in their various locations across America. This became so prevalent that at some point, it seemed that EVERY hotel in America felt the need to have such an Oasis within its walls.

On the other, the INDIVIDUAL level: Tiki fever infected single entrepreneurs big and small, everywhere. ALL kinds of people wanted so badly to have their own little Bali Hai, so individual versions popped up in the smallest towns sometimes - even if the population was not necessarily gonna sustain them. Mick might have been such an enthusiast who found himself stranded on his own suburban island.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2012-03-13 14:19 ]

Alamo, that "backwater location" in "the middle of nowhere", was and is
the home of many of the east bay's wealthiest. The problem was that
residents didn't hang out in their own downtown. They preferred the
major towns--Danville, 4 miles south, or Walnut Creek, 3 miles north.
Except for necessities-of-life purveyors, the only retail business that
long thrived there was the tack and feed store.