Albert's Tiki Village, Sacramento, CA (restaurant)

Name:Albert's Tiki Village
Type:restaurant
Street:3514 Marconi Ave at Watt Ave.
City:Sacramento
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:916-489-8221
Status:defunct

Description:
I have been looking and researching and have not been able to find much at all
about Albert's Tiki Village .It's funny because out of all the menus that I have
collected ,the Tiki Village is one of my favorites .Based on the menu they served
Cantonese , Mandarin and American dishes like- Steak and Lobster,Top Sirloin,Spring
Chicken and Teriyaki Chicken etc.Their specialty drinks were the: Green Dragon ,
Sharks Tooth,Tiki Village punch, Rangoon Ruby,The Blue Diamond,Pino Frio and of
coarse a Mai Tai.Looks like they also served :Tiki Grog for two served in a
communal tiki bowl,Volcano eruption and a Scorpion bowl for two as well.

I have not seen any mugs , plates , swizzles or any other items that would help
about info on the place.I had seen that PTD found a matchbook , but that's really
the only thing I have seen.Abstractiki(David)is really good about research on
places...so maybe he has something for us.

[ Edited by: 1961surf 2009-11-18 10:16 ]

Bill,

PTD just posted some pictures of the menu from Tiki Village that he found in a Sacramento Dining Out guide. I had never heard of this place before then.

Here are PTD's menu pages:

Menu states that the owner was Albert Mar and that he was usually on-site to meet and greet and advise on the dishes.

DC

A friend of mine was able to salvage a few pieces from this place prior to it going under the wrecking ball. He still has some of the bamboo wall sconce lamps and three 12' tikis that used to be there. I have wanted to buy the two he is willing to sell, but the $3,000.00 price tag for both of them has kept me from acquiring them to date. Still dreaming though...

Oh, and he does have a menu too!

PTD

On 2009-11-17 11:30, Psycho Tiki D wrote:
A friend of mine was able to salvage a few pieces from this place prior to it going under the wrecking ball. He still has some of the bamboo wall sconce lamps and three 12' tikis that used to be there. PTD

PTD,

Any chance of seeing some photos of those items?

DC

Man, wish I would have had that menu for Tiki Modern, since it features (as you all have noticed, I am sure) the Witco "God of Fortune" Tiki. I was only able to squeeze in the gold matchbook cover into the Tiki collage on page 99.

PTD, did you say THREE 12 FOOT Tikis? Or two, or even one...would you have any photos?

There were 3 of these tikis in total...one the owner has kept for himself and he has it at home and the other two are for sale...as much as I would love to own one I am willing to put anyone interested in purchasing one or both of these with the owner.

Here is a picture of one of them...

Yes, they are Witco.

I can always go by and take a couple of more pics and talk to him as well.

PTD

[ Edited by: Psycho Tiki D 2009-11-17 12:03 ]

Nice job PTD .The menu was too large to scan so I took a couple of better photos
of the cover and the first two pages of menu.

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I so dig that decorative border!

On 2009-11-17 12:01, Psycho Tiki D wrote:
Here is a picture of one of them...

Yes, they are Witco.

I can always go by and take a couple of more pics and talk to him as well.
PTD

More photos. Talk. Yah, please. :)

In that size, they must have been custom jobs by Witco. That one looks like it has a good coat of paint on it, prolly cuz of being outside. Would be nice to find a pic of them in Situ at the restaurant.

I just got off the phone with the owner and have set up a time tomorrow afternoon to go take pictures and talk to him. Apparently the other one is slightly different and we are going to have to dig them out of a corner to take the pictures. They are literally buried in a warehouse full of stuff, so I am hoping to see if he is willing to make a better deal once we get them out.

PTD

Abstractiki(David)is really good about research on
places...so maybe he has something for us.

Thank you for the compliment Trader Bill, I would love to be able to dig something up for you. I'll sure try.

Great new thread you have started here and you've already got a ton of cool stuff poring in! What a fantastic response form everyone. And those Tikis! WoW! I would love to have one. Would he sell just one i wonder? Looking forward to seeing more pics!

Here is the complete GOLDEN matchbook:

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Because of the gold and it advertising Cantonese food, I always assumed this place was more Chinese in character.

Not much to tell right now.

The demo had began when these were salvaged. Several other pieces aside from the tikis were saved including a boat, lobster traps and the wall sconces.

Here are the pictures I took. I was cramped for space. The tikis are actually 10'6" and 10'8". There were three that were hollowed to fit against the posts on the overhang of the building and no they are not painted.

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They are for sale individually @ $1,500.00 each or $3,000.00 for the pair. If sold as a pair, the owner will include some extras such as a pair of the bamboo wall light sconces and some other items! Again, if I had the money (and the space)...it would be nice to see these go to someone here!

PTD

[ Edited by: Psycho Tiki D 2009-11-18 17:52 ]

Nice. The other one looks like an elongated version of Witco's "Polynesian Fishing God"
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--sometimes referred to as the "Mick Jagger Tiki"

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Though these are custom pieces, the price is still a little high for today's market.

Thanks for the pics PTD.

A few years ago, bigbadtikidaddy gifted me with a big stack of Xerox copies from a cache of old Northern Cal. phone books he found, including this ad for Albert's Tiki Village:

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A few more interesting places from the old Sacramento phone books that might require their own threads:

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The Bali Hai seems to be a perfect example of Polynesian Pop, mixing Indonesian food with a Maori Tiki, a Hawaiian Outrigger, and a South American Toucan.

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2009-11-19 01:41 ]

Nice work Sabu .

Again, not to dwell further on other Sacramento places than Tiki Village, but this concept seemed familiar:

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We are talking third generation Trader Vic logo Tiki here. :)

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[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-11-23 13:05 ]

I found somthin :)

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pic courtesy of Paipo

The God of Fortune indeed! I found something too:

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Another Sacramento Tiki place using Albert's Logo Tiki! Maybe it was opened by Albert himself, later? Isn't a Smorgy buffet a 70 s concept? I don't know American culinary history that well besides Tiki..

Nice matchbook Sven.

On 2009-11-21 14:10, bigbrotiki wrote:
The God of Fortune indeed! I found something too:

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Another Sacramento Tiki place using Albert's Logo Tiki! Maybe it was opened by Albert himself, later? Isn't a Smorgy buffet a 70 s concept? I don't know American culinary history that well besides Tiki..

From Wikipedia...

"Smörgåsbord (Swedish pronunciation: [ˌsmœrɡɔsˈbuːɖ]) is a type of Scandinavian meal served buffet-style with multiple dishes of various foods on a table. In Norway it is called koldtbord and in Denmark it is called kolde bord. Smörgåsbord became internationally known as Smorgasbord at the 1939 New York World's Fair when it was offered at the Swedish Pavilion's "Three Crowns Restaurant".[1] It is typically a celebratory meal and guests can help themselves from a range of dishes laid out for their choice. In a restaurant, the term refers to a buffet-style table laid out with many small dishes from which, for a fixed amount of money, one is allowed to choose as many as one wishes."

I recall smorgasbord was popular term for me growing up....mid-late 60's, but not as much in the 70's. I think it was more of a 60's thing., that spilled over into the early 70's. After that it kinda switched over to the less exotic sounding "buffet".

The 60's and 70's had definite trends in European style foods like French....Fondue was a big trend in the late 60's and 70's....also Wine And Cheese places were popular in the 70's....They saw their heyday like Tiki Restaurants did, and went away just as fast.

I wish restaurants would use the term Smorgasbord again....It sounded so classy.

Yeah, I miss "smorgasbord" too!

My absolute all-time favorite was an old Swedish Smorgasbord that used to be in Huntington Beach, near the old Library, off of Main Street.

Old school style, small but delicious food. It was there for years.

I was really bummed out when I heard the place had closed down...this was years ago.

To answer my own question and support Jim's memories:

These phone book ads from 1962 prove that Smorgasbord was indeed already popular during the heyday of Tiki:

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I hereby move to re-instate the term smorgasbord as a permanent replacement for the term "Buffet" here on TC.

Much more classy :)

No to get off the topic of Tiki Village , but there was an actual restaurant called the Smorgasborg .My prents took me there when I was a kid in the San Gabriel valley .

The Tahiti Buffet is still there but has no tikis. As a teenager we had a meal at Albert's. Dan and I went to the Coral Reef once before it closed. The Zombie Hut was special and a real crime that it closed. Wendy

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2012-07-29 10:42 ]

Looks like the third tiki has surfaced, and is for sale... for $2500 - yikes. "Tiki Pole that held up roof of Tiki Village in Sacramento. From the 50s. 10’6” tall"

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https://sacramento.craigslist.org/clt/d/rancho-cordova-tiki-pole-106-tall/6935233934.html