Don The Beachcomber, Sunset Beach, CA (restaurant)

this thread needs ton's of new photo's
Ben and Diablo and others have been doing alot of great wok on improving this place. every time I go I see something new.

Jeff(btd)

http://www.ocfoodies.com/profiles/blogs/don-the-beachcomber-by-rich

lots more reviews on Facebook

i love this new place... i'm just entering the tiki world, but love the tikiyaki band (the owner of don the beachcomber gave me a CD).

their facebook page is great: http://www.facebook.com/DonTheBeachcomber
on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/don_beachcomber

i'm thinking about new year's there!

Don't think about it,
do it.
:wink:

Jeff(btd)

The wife and I went by today (sunday) and she had a mai-tai and I had a rum barrel, both tasty and damn strong!. We had fish tacos and ribs and it was amazing!. Way better than sams #1 of the wimpy second version of sams, We will be back for dinner on a sat night, fun place. Also, there were dancers in the hidden jungle!.

Cool video clip link here about Don's.

http://www.greersoc.com/index.php/blogs/daily-dose/pleasing_the_tiki_gods/

We drove up and went to Don's for the first time yesterday. It was great! Cocktails and food were good, the staff was very friendly and helpful, and the place in general looks fantastic. Plus I got my DtB rum barrel mug that I've been wanting for a long time, and a Sam's Seafood mug to boot.

A Long Beach, CA paper called Dictrict Weekly has an
Article about Missionary’s Downfall drink at Don the Beachcomber

Oh good! That place really deserves all the support it can get, and TC is doing a good job of spreading the love, but what Don's really needs is the LOCAL community to discover it, and this will certainly help. :)

If they can hang in there another year, I think they will survive...Keeping my fingers crossed.

Well, we were there on a rainy Wednesday night and the bar was pretty much full. I can't remember if the dining area had a lot of people.

I had an amazing time at Don's this past Sunday for my 40th Birthday brunch party. I had never been there before and I have to say I was blown away.

My original plan was to have my birthday brunch at Bali Hai but since they are now under renovations I needed to come up with a new plan so a friend of mine let me know about the brunch at Don's. Food was not as good, buffet was tiny in comparison but the fact there was a live show made it all worth it.

I have a few pictures from our weekend here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/catmomma/sets/72157623160271657/
the second half of the shots include some of Don the Beachcomber.

Grunion Gazette restaurant profile: Don the Beachcomber, Sunset Beach, CA

http://www.ocweekly.com/bestof/2009/award/best-restaurant-dandeacute-cor-538241/

cool!

thanks for posting those, guys.

Jeff(btd)

Can we get a shuttle service set up between the Bamboo Ben Garage Sale and DTB's After-Sale in May?

DC

The Bosko Moai seems happy in his new home at Don's.

Even if he's not smiling. :)

Off topic. My observations of Don's from 2 weeks ago.

I went to Don's 2 weeks ago for the first time since it was Kona. My wife and our friends sat in the bar and enjoyed some cocktails until our table was ready. Heading to our table, we noticed that Don's was pretty busy as there was an event going on in the room on the right side of the restaurant. We were seated in the main dining area with the lava rock fountain and giant tiki.

Charlie? took care of us that night. He was a fantastic server and made everyone feel at home and welcome. We had questions about certain drinks and he was very helpful. I enjoyed a Navy Grog which was great, but my favorite was the Dark and Stormy. Definitely one of the best drinks I've ever had. The drinks and service were fantastic. I was also impressed and by the Beachcomber swizzle sticks in the drinks. To me, it's these special throwback touches that will help to make Don the Beachcomber iconic once again.

There were four of us and we all had three courses including dessert. The calamari apps were great as was my Kahlua pork. I liked how everything seemed to keep with the overall theme of the place. For dessert we had a lava cake? and a cheesecake. Unfortunately the lava cake was missing the lava. The coffee was outstanding. Next time I will have to order one of those exotic coffee drinks, which was another thing I was impressed by. They (Don's) actually had such follow through as to have tropical coffee drinks for after dinner..very nice.

I guess this is the constructive criticism part. To me the bar always seems like the most crowded part of the building. I believe that this has a lot to do with the escapism that the darkness and intimacy of the bar provides. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling that in the dining room. I liked the decor, but to me it seemed to bright and airy. I would like to have seen candles on the tables and the lighting much, much dimmer to give the place a more expensive and mysterious feel. Maybe some music, Cal Tjader anyone? A lot of the mystique seems lost when the dining room feels daytime like. If all of the dining areas can't be dimmed, maybe one of them could be, and the other could be more family friendly and less romantic. One other observation was of a bright fluorescent light in the hall by the kitchen which was sorry to say but tacky and kills the vibe a little.

Overall we had a great time and I think I'm definitely going to be a regular. The service was outstanding as was the food. My mouth waters when I think about the drinks. I'm sure that there's a lot of sprucing up in the works. I just hope that giving the main dining area more mystique is in the plans.

socal-tiki

Just some pics I took a while back that I forgot to post at the time.

Big tide and flooding in Sunset Beach! Any word on Don the Beachcomber??
http://www.dailypilot.com/ocnow/tn-dpt-king-tide-causes-flooding-along-oc-coast-20121213,0,6439554.story

Lots of familiar Sunset Beach spots getting water but it does not show Dons..

KTLA News: Flooding in Sunset Beach

I went into the Dagger Bar yesterday afternoon to get a gift card and Kate Flannery, who plays Meredith on The Office, was sitting in a booth with several other people having a good time. She looks much better in person!

Kate Flannery is Tiki !!...

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=40465&forum=17

Thanks John-O! Her character is pretty much my favorite on The Office so it was cool to see her there.

Yet more super high tides expected in Sunset Beach, CA. Will this one reach Don the Beachcombers and flood the Dagger Bar?

KTLA News: King Tide in Sunset Beach, CA

They've got berms already on the beaches so hopefully they're adding some sand bags for extra protection. The wall that surrounds Surfside should divert the water away from Don's too.

I love this kind of weather!
Ok, well the berm closest to Don the Beachcomber isn't very high.

I've seen the waves a lot worse in the same spot. It didn't stop people from surfing or kitesurfing.

They're not blurry shots, there's a lot of sand in the air.

-Lori

[ Edited by: tikilongbeach 2013-01-10 18:26 ]

This news is blowing up on Facebook at the moment so I thought I would head off any panic before it starts
A "For Sale" sign was spotted on Don's and many folks are taking this as as "Don's is closing"
which is not true!

So it is time for the facts, It is the building that is for sale "Not Don the Beachcomber!"
The owners (The Snyder's) have always leased the building from a separate owner
and it is that owner who is selling the building and not Don's current lease.
This means the building is going on the market & can take a long time to sell
And Don's does not have to go anywhere.

The variables are will the new owners continue the lease agreement to Don's which is likely
or will they have other plans, so this can change way down the line (maybe some years away)

Ideally the new owners will just continue to lease the building to Don the Beachcomber
so at this time we shouldn't overreact, but we can help out by continuing support of Don's
with our patronage.

Thanks for the clarification, ATP. As the Bahooka story shows, never take anything for granted. We are all happy that the economy is picking up, but that means real estate developers are extending their greedy fangs again. We live in a free country (relatively free, since it is ruled by money) and we like it, or we would change it, right? :)

Enjoy it while it lasts, Kids!

Thanks, for the clarification, guys. I am anxiously watching from afar, as Don's is very dear to me and, quite possibly, my favorite place on the planet.
Mahalo,
Rick

If there's a For Sale sign out front, if it was my restaurant there's be a huge banner that says "We're not going anywhere!" If people think they're closing they may stop going figuring the service will drop off too.

We will update when we have more information, but as of the moment Don's
is not going anywhere.

Thought I would post a set of Before & After pics of the night exterior of DTB's to show what a difference a touch of mood (read multi-colored) lighting can make.

Some time back the exterior was lit, very atmospherically, with a variety of blue, green, and red lights which just always seem to work the proper magic within or outside of any Tiki/tropical environment.

Here are two good examples of that look at Don's:

But then when I returned, some months later, THIS is what I saw instead:

Just doesn't have the same cool atmosphere, does it? And surely it can't have anything to do with cost, as how much more expensive can multi-colored flood-lights be than standard white?

Anyway, I'd love to know -- because I haven't been back there since I took those last two images -- if that's still how Don's exterior looks at night. It's been so long that, by now, perhaps they've gone back to the original more atmospheric look.

Cheers and Mahalo :drink: :tiki:

I assume that email address is supposed to be [email protected]
Also the requested forwarding address at gmail doesn't exist. I got an undeliverable message, even after a second try while changing "thd" to "the" thinking it was another typo.

[ Edited by: kkocka 2015-06-29 10:32 ]

[ Edited by: kkocka 2015-06-29 10:44 ]

This place should be celebrated. There are so few left. I have hope that it's not over for Don The Beachcomber just yet. I think locals and a larger community are much more interested in protecting. These are voters (at least locally)! It'll be a big fight if we all (locals especially, but the community worldwide as well) make it one. There are some fights we'd prefer not to have, but which can turn things around around and actually get good things accomplished, like possibly a permanent historical recognition and protection for the property so this can't happen again. It can also bring a community together, locals and Don the Beachcomber fans worldwide (and tiki and ITMP fans!!), which is another good thing. This can be turned into a good thing (poison into medicine), but it won't happen without eyes and ears open, people on the ground, and involvement near and far with loud and consistent voices.

Hula Girls Blogspot: Save Don the Beachcomber

TV news story about Don the Beachcomber's status
KCBS: Don the Beachcomber

Orange County Register: Don the Beachcomber

[ Edited by: KING BUSHWICH THE 33RD 2015-07-07 10:21 ]

http://www.coastmagazine.com/articles/cocktails-3449-mixologists-voracious.html

Here's a new sign I made for the Dagger Bar at Don's. It makes a great place for that Memory Photo. Post em' here!

Future uncertain again?

TikeCentral: Don the Beachcomber celebtrates the last 10 years at it's Sunset Beach location (Sam's Seafood)

[ Edited by: King Bushwich the 33rd 2018-03-21 14:15 ]

On 2018-03-21 14:14, King Bushwich the 33rd wrote:
Future uncertain again?

TikeCentral: Don the Beachcomber celebtrates the last 10 years at it's Sunset Beach location (Sam's Seafood)
[ Edited by: King Bushwich the 33rd 2018-03-21 14:15 ]

Not uncertain anymore, it's official: Don's is closing this week.

On 2018-03-26 07:37, Loki-Tiki wrote:
Not uncertain anymore, it's official: Don's is closing this week.

Damn, I saw this buzzing on Instagram and hoped it wasn't true. I checked Don't website and there's no word--just calendar event listings through April.

Anyone have details? I'm assuming they lost their lease, and have gathered that the property owners have been itching to bulldoze the place and put up condos or an office complex for years now.

Any word on a new location? This can't have come as a surprise to Beachcomber management...

I read on FaceBook that March 31st is the last day. The owners of the building tripled the rent to force them out.

I have no inside word and know nothing more than that it seems we're sadly about to very soon say “aloha” to Huntington Beach's iconic Don the Beachcomber. I'll always think of it very fondly, including for the many wonderful tiki friends and incredible artists that I met there, for the inspiring decor and the cocktails (of course!), and because we were fortunately able to sneak inside with our sweet Ella-Roux for a few of the early tiki marketplaces held there.

Aloha and thanks for the memories, Don the Beachcomber.

Goodbye, goodbye
Oh why must we say goodbye?
I've heard that word in every land
'Ke ora te tura' the Polynesians say
Farewell, dear friend
We'll meet another day
From far Japan, 'sayonara' they cry
I wish they didn't mean goodbye

I hear 'au revoir' and long for gay Paree
In Rome, 'arrividerci,' they fondly say to me
As I sail from fair Hawaii I hear 'aloha oe'
Oh, I wish they didn't mean goodbye

As I leave London town I hear their 'cheerio'
From Spain 'hasta manana'
'Adios' from Mexico
And Vienna's old refrain is a sad 'auf wiedersehen'
Oh, I wish they didn't mean goodbye

‘Aloha oe,' I hear them sigh
But I wish they didn't mean goodbye

Well crap. I guess I have to scratch that off my list. Or go to Hawaii.