The Hawaiian, Long Beach, CA (restaurant)

Name:The Hawaiian
Type:restaurant
Street:4645 E. Pacifc Coast Hwy
City:Long Beach
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:3-7407
Status:defunct

Description:
The Hawaiian was a restaurant/bar that served Cantonese Cuisine,charcoal broiled steaks and tropical drinks. They had a buffet at 12 daily. I bought a matchbook on Ebay then did a little more research and found some pictures of a postcard, which have some more interior shots. The building is now a Pep Boys.

[ Edited by: Mongoloid 2008-12-17 17:19 ]

Mongoloid

Here is another postcard that I have from The Hawaiian.

I also have this menu from the Hawaiian.

Don't think I have seen the matchbook from this place, maybe you could post that.

DC

I knew I had something a bit out of the ordinary from The Hawaiian. I dug thru my stuff and found it.

A business card, front and back.

Tiki Shaker,

Very nice, the old business cards are hard to come by. I have been enjoying your posts, keep up the good work.

I still want you to add that Mark Thomas Outrigger postcard to the thread I started under Locating Tiki

Here is the matchbook I saw on ebay.

DC

the Brick is interesting.....

Stained napkin.

That napkin, stains or not, allows for a much better view of the cool graphic on the back of the post card.

On 2008-12-21 09:09, RevBambooBen wrote:
the Brick is interesting.....

Maybe that place was some other unsuccessful restaurant venture (like Italian?) that was turned Polynesian because it was the rage? I like the lamps, simple balls and tubes with what looks like rattan swirls bent around them. Very tropical modern.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting how they combined two separate parts of the big logo - the tiki and the fruit bowl - to create the napkin graphic.

Here is a better view of that really cool napkin.

DC

Ahh the good ole' days , when the air was clean and sex was dirty!

[ Edited by: 1961surf 2009-04-13 09:44 ]

How cool is that...I live less than five minutes away from that Pep Boys and I had no idea that was there. I'll have to ask my mom if she ever went there. My earliest memories of that corner are of it being a used car lot, but hell I'm only 34. Nice finds everyone.

The Hawaiian matchbook...

with the inside text:

For the sake of being thorough...
Buzzy Out!

[ Edited by: Bay Park Buzzy 2009-04-27 00:49 ]

Just nabbed this matchbook from the Hawaiian that has two new pictures that we have not seen before.

Here is the exterior, looks like there was a cool patio area on the side with bamboo fencing.

And the interior, another shot of those cool lamps. Looks like some nice place mats on the tables.

Also another version of the Tiki and the Hawaiian girl logo.

DC

This matchbook from the Hawaiian Restaurant shows that it was once owned by Don May, who also owned the Leilani Hut in Belmont Shores (aka Long Beach). A small Tiki world indeed.

Here's a link to the Leilani Hut thread.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=32715&forum=2&hilite=leilani
DC

What a LB eye opener! All the images from Sabu's original post are gone http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=4087&forum=1&hilite=hawaiian ...I'm wondering what those menus looked like.

I was looking through old phone books on microfilm at the LB public library some time ago and found these ads. Dinners until midnight? I was born way too late!

Tiki neophyte here, looking for some memorabilia from The Hawaiian. My father in law, who passed away a few years ago, used to be the maitre d' there. I'm trying to put together a shadow box/collage/shrine of some sort for my wife's birthday this year to give her a nice surprise and honor his memory. If anyone has anything they'd consider parting with, please e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks!

Just got this Luau invitation mailer dated 1958 from The Hawaiian in Long Beach.

The first half of the card advertises the restaurant operations with fashion show Tuesdays and the Paradise Quartet with George Kainapau.

The second half advertises the big Sunday Luau Feast with a Kalau Pig in a Pit and Island Attire.

For you English majors, How many typos can you spot?!

DC

Even as an English major, I'm almost more taken aback by the typesetting. Yikes!

Kevin

Love the old GEneva phone number, mine was GE1-0227, Holden's was GE1-0225! :)

[ Edited by: A Frame 2013-03-15 16:45 ]

I was trying to google the location...what mapquest points to is a church, but the address is different...however, down the street is a location with all the typical faux-tropical foliage and even fake lava rocks surrounding it. it also has the carport overhang....could it be the super 8 motel that now occupies that space? I also am going by Sven's urban archeology trick of looking for the tall palms. PS, I just saw the link to Sabu's post and there is no longer any pep boys around there. The motel has obviously been extended beyond the original building, but who really knows? Sven?

http://soundcloud.com/lucas-vigor/sets/set-3/

"yer jus not tuned into the series of tubes yet, let it soak in".

[

[ Edited by: lucas vigor 2013-03-12 16:23 ]

There is a Pep Boys at 4645 E. PCH in Long Beach. Ximeno Avenue is the cross street and it's by our notorious traffic circle.

The Super 8 is at 4201 E. PCH, although it was built in 1958. It used to be the BeachTown Motel. Java Lanes Bowling Alley was probably a 5 minute walk from there.

The Hawaiian was across the street from the Circle Marina Car Wash which is still in operation. Google street view has the best images I could find of it, but I couldn't save the image.

-Lori

[ Edited by: tikilongbeach 2013-03-12 17:51 ]

[ Edited by: tikilongbeach 2013-03-12 17:56 ]

Yes, the Hawaiian was at the spot currently occupied by the Pep Boys store. It was one of many great places you could find in Long Beach in the early sixties, as documented here by Sabu a few years ago.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=33196&forum=2&vpost=554307&hilite=sabu

I was way too young then to take Sabu's tour and by the time I had a 10-speed, just 10 years later in 1973, only Java Lanes and Mr. C's had survived. :(

Found this photo of the Hawaiian exterior and marquee featuring George Kainapau of course.

DC

Love to see this thread still active. I have been trying to find out more about this place for years (family connection through my wife's dad, who was maitre'd at The Hawaiian for a time).

I also came across this shot, which shows a different view of the location (it's a big image; you will want to pan down to the bottom):

It's online at http://cdm16855.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/LBFiremen/id/3489

Also, in response to the question what the menu looked like, here's an image currently hosted on Critiki (which I believe was posted by none other than dustycajun):

[ Edited by: HotelCharlieEcho 2017-02-08 15:39 ]

A pop culture side note of possible interest on the above photo. At this intersection at Ximeno and PCH in Long Beach, CA on the South side of PCH is a hamburger place called Beany's Drive Thru which got it's name from the Beany and Cecil cartoon. It can be seen at the bottom right of the photo

Beany's Drive Thru was there around 1957-1963 and there may have been some others in other Southern California cities. Here is some home movie footage of the place which has been put to music.

YouTube: Beany's Drive Thru

[ Edited by: KING BUSHWICH THE 33RD 2017-02-08 16:48 ]

A little more for those interested because I have had trouble finding out much about the place:

It looks like The Hawaiian opened for business on Thursday, July 28, 1955. If you have an account with newspapers.com or newspaperarchive.com (I think both offer free trials), take a look at Page 24 of the Long Beach Independent for Tuesday, July 26, 1955 - there's an article entitled "New Hawaii [sic] Restaurant to Open Here Thursday". The article confirms it was owned by Don May, as others have posted in this thread.

While I'm not 100% certain, The Hawaiian appears to have closed on Sunday, June 29, 1969. Page 20 of the Long Beach Independent for Friday, June 27, 1969 has a piece entitled "Farewell to the Hawaiian" that says June 29 will be the restaurant's last day.

While digging around for information about this place again, I realized there are some shots from the video King B posted where you can see the Hawaiian location across the street (a few years before it became the Hawaiian). Bigbro was speculating earlier in this thread on whether the building had been something non-Polynesian before the Hawaiian came along - if you look closely you can see the name Golden Drumstick over the marquee. Golden Drumstick was a chain of fried chicken restaurants, most well known for their locations in Arizona along Route 66.

Here's a screen grab showing the exterior (note the square marquee that the Hawaiian kept):

Page 8 of Councilman Daryl Supernaw's newsletter from March 30, 2018, includes a reference to the transition from the Golden Drumstick to The Hawaiian and a couple of other good exterior photos before The Hawaiian took over: http://www.longbeach.gov/globalassets/district-4/media-library/documents/newsletters/2018/march-30-2018

[ Edited by: HotelCharlieEcho 2020-02-12 17:12 ]

this shot is interesting because it is possibly taken at the same time as the middle photo in the postcard you posted above because it has George Kainapau on the marquee. Unless he returned there every summer like Arthur Lyman did to the Bali Hai San Diego? George was a major Hawaiian recording artist in the 1950s and 60s recording with Bell Records and Decca https://www.discogs.com/artist/1046747-George-Kainapau