Kon Tiki,, Montreal, QC., Canada (restaurant)

Name:Kon Tiki,
Type:restaurant
Street:1455 Peel St.
City:Montreal, QC.
State:
Zip:
country:Canada
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
I couldn't find a thread for this particular location so I thought I'd start one up.

[ Edited by: uncle trav 2009-08-09 08:15 ]

Great postcard of the exterior.

Matchbook.

Swizzle.

A great image of a night out for the folks. Suit and tie for the guys, dresses and pearls for the gals.

A great menu from Mimi's collection. You can see one of the clam shell lights in the background.

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

[ Edited by: uncle trav 2009-09-05 11:17 ]

One of the great Tiki restaurants, I have quite a bit of paper from this place. Love that exterior treatment on the side of the Sheraton Building.

Here are some images from my collection and the Canadian Tiki post.

Interior/Exterior Postcards

Exterior photo from ZuluMagoo

Postcard and text from TabooDan with a shot of the hotel and the Kon Tiki entrance.

Must be closer to the 1959 opening date as there is no circular Kon Tiki sign above the roof in this shot. Was probably added later because you really couldn't see the restaurant if you were walking or driving down the road until you were on top of it!

A little closer one of the entrance where you can see the statues (off to right) and the cool design to the shape of the roof protruding from the Hotel.

Some of the great menu art, I put these up in my motorhome.

DC

Here is a larger size postcard I have that shows more of the interior of the restaurant.

You can see a nice diorama scene behind the bar.

A crisp blow-up of the great entrance.

Here is another matchbook with the three cannibals logo.

DC

Great stuff DC!!

Here's the souvenir photo folder from the Montreal Kon Tiki (sorry, no photo inside)

And a Schweppes ad from the July 28, 1962 issue of MACLEAN'S magazine:

Close-up of the lamp on the table:

Nice stuff Sabu.

That Schweppes add cracks me up. A night out on the town at one of the all-time great Tiki temples and they order vodka tonics in the signature Collins glass! (note the umbrella on the side!)

I think the ad company mis-cast this photo shot.

DC

Yeah, I can see the possible benefit for the Kon Tiki to have an image of their restaurant appear in a large magazine, but I'm not sure of the benefit, tangible or intangible for Schweppes. It does seem like a mis-match.

I have a similar beer ad showing stylish patrons enjoying a beer at the San Francisco Trader Vic's which had me scratching my head too.

This thread has some really great photos of this Tiki temple, here is another one I found online. It is from the Chisom family tree website and was taken in 1961.

Great shot of the lamp and the coconut mug with a Kon Tiki swizzle sticking out.

DC

Now, could you please tell us what the crumbs on the table consist of ? :)

I thought those were ashes?

You Tiki CSI guys you! You are right! - That's disgusting...

We'll how many drinks have they had? The ash tray is getting smaller and smaller. :)

How do you know its not blow, coke, nose candy?
:wink:

Jeff(btd)

You have to remember that smoking was the norm back then, each table outfitted with a nifty little ashtray that we now collect.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Here is another family photo I found online from the Kon Tiki in Montreal circa 1971. Looks like the drinking age was about 16 back then.

Check out those BIG drinks. Double ashtrays with a lit butt.

DC

Picked up this nice little coaster form the Kon Tiki in Montreal featuring the Three Cannibals logo.

DC

I found a couple of articles that bookend the life and times of the Kon Tiki at the Sheraton Mount Royal.

The grand opening in 1959 with a young looking Stephen Crane.

Description of the new restaurant

And the sell-off in 1986 - the entire contents for a mere $78,000.

I wonder who bought the restaurant? The article mentions 6 outrigger canoes as part of the sale but not one nod to the numerous and huge Tikis that were part of the deal.

It seems as though the restaurant did not close, rather the hotel closed. Goes to show again that Tiki lived well into the 1980's in Canada.

DC

On 2011-07-08 02:48, bigbrotiki wrote:
Wow, what splendor of Tiki detail! I am amazed that it took this long for it to appear on TC, so far I had only seen glimpses of it, I had no idea of the extent of it. Thank you for the thorough documentation and uploading of it, J.D.!

It gives one an idea what a treasure trove of Tiki art the original Montreal Kon-Tiki must have been! But that the Jardin owners kept it all here until now is just as amazing. I mean nobody (except for maybe the Alibi and the Munich Trader Vic's) has kept all those lamps! And the quality Tikis they have! Those original Cannibal carving posts - what relics! I can only compare this place to my discovery of the then intact Islands Restaurant and Hanalei Hotel artifacts from the Luau: A royal tomb of historic Tiki artifacts

DC, you must have missed this thread I am referring to above. It's all still in Montreal, even the Luau Tiki door handles:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=4849&forum=2

Bigbro,

Argh, don't know how I missed that one!

At least we now have the link so folks can see where all of the great Kon Tiki stuff ended up.

On that note, did we ever determine where that Tiki from Link Paola's Outrigger ended up in Canada??

DC

Found this nice large ad with a rendering of the entrance.

DC

...which was, as we know, directly copied from the famous (one-of-the-ten-best-ever) color rendering of the place:

Begging forgiveness, I am not trying to be a wise-ass or a stickler with these supplemental posts, I am just indulging in my passion to visually retrace the origins and "transmission" of all Tiki pop imagery- like I just did with the Oceanic Art book. If I could, I would do that all the way to the original native artist sitting in his jungle hut! :)

And of course, I reserve the right to point out when an image is directly copied from the Book of Tiki - (which is NOT the case here)

Bigbro,

No worries on the post, always good to see more visuals to go with the story.

Now, about that image you posted. It is not the same as the postcard I have and Uncle Trav posted.

Your image has more to see. Where did you get that??

DC

From Florian Gabriel. He had the ORIGINAL! I wonder who has it now.

Here is an old news photo of the actor Clint Walker at the Kon Tiki in Montreal.

And an ad for the luncheon.

DC

Found another action photo from 1961 taken at the Kon Tiki Montreal.

And, a great album cover from Michael Louvain that was shot at the Kon Tiki (posted by Tiki Quebec).

DC

Another photo from the Montreal Kon tiki circa 1964 with some nice Tikis in view.

Why is the woman on the right wearing a clam shell on her head?!

DC

Unusual line up of the 3 Tikis in the back:

A stylized Janus Tiki post, an authentic Kava Kava statue, and a stencil Tiki, somewhat in the graphic style of the A-frame border outside:

…and who was the missing person that ordered the "Gold Cup Gardenia" cocktail? No doubt the photographer.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2014-09-14 13:27 ]

Nice B & W photo Big Bro. You can see another one of those stencil Tikis and the clam shell in the back of the other photo I posted. Must have been the same booth as the one with the ladies.

DC

Swizzle stick from the Montreal Kon Tiki.

Taken in 1964. Recently celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary

[ Edited by: tikimemory 2015-06-24 13:16 ]

Congratulations on your 50th! Nice photo! I'd be interested in knowing more about what brought you to Tiki Central. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks. Just searching to see what happened to the Kontiki at the Mount Royal Hotel in Montreal and found this thread. It's always been a special memory for us and we would have liked to revisit but it closed in the '80s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jardin_Tiki

Here is a wiki version of what when where why who concerning Jardin Tiki. The owner Douglas Chan died in 2002 and his sons Danny and Yandy continued the business until it closed in March 2015.

3 inch swizzle

Another piece from the Kon Tiki Montreal, though the view is similar to postcards that have already been posted.

These two images are from a La Presse news article on line and show a few new angles of the restaurant, including the layered wood Tiki panels that were on the walls.

I was wondering if anyone has ever seen those little three sided green Tiki lamps that sat on the tables ever for sale. They seemed to be a staple at most of the Kon Tiki chain of resturants and obviously there was enough of them as most tables had one so one must be around somehwere! :)

Hey TikiTeddy, nice pics.
Thanks for the posts.

You do still see those lamps come up for sale once in a while.
They were used at quite a few different establishments all across North America.

Happy Hunting!
TabooDan

Hey TabooDan,

Thanks. I remember the Kon Tiki and still mourn its demise. Maybe one day will find one of those lamps!

Cheers, TikiTeddie

An interesting little tidbit from a Wisconsin Newspaper, The Rhinelander Daily, from 26-1-1959, their Washington Column - the article though about the opening of the Kon Tiki in Montreal, implies that the Sheraton Chain was planning on opening one in Washington DC but that never appears to have transpired!