Aloha Jhoe's, Palm Springs, CA (restaurant)

Came across this Desert Sun 1969 piece about Kreis, stating he sold Aloha Jhoe's to Sherman's (?) SO...still operating in '69.

" Mr, Kreis has maintained his interest in Rim Rocks while selling his former restaurants, Aloha Jhoe's and Jeffrey’s last season to Sherman's. He still operates M.F.K. in the heart of downtown Palm Springs and will soon reopen its adjoining Signature Room."

I did some more research into the Aloha Jhoe’s location and history, and what I found was really cool, being a big fan of Googie architecture, Tiki and Sherman's Deli! It turns out that Aloha Jhoe’s went into the Huddle Springs restaurant which was a classic Googie building designed by William F. Cody. The restaurant opened as The Springs in 1957.

In 1958 Paul Cummings of the famous Googie Huddle Restaurants in Los Angeles leased the restaurant and renamed in Huddle Springs.

Huddle left in 1959 and Milton F. Kreis assumed the lease and got a $150,000 remodel project approved at the City council to turn Huddle Springs restaurant into Aloha Jhoe’s!

Here is a photo of Mr. & Mrs. Kreis (left) at the Grand Opening of Aloha Jhoes.

Part of the restaurant space was maintained as a coffee shop that was operated as Jeffery’s. You can see Jeffery's and Aloha Jhoe's in this photo.

The building was located within the Cameron Center (also very Googie) which was also expanding at the time.

The Sherman Harris of Sherman’s Deli bought the lease for Aloha Jhoe’s and Jefferey’s in early 1968

Soon after the deal, Harris moved his existing Sherman’s Steak House into Aloha Jhoe's and started Sherman's Deli South in the building.

The Cameron Center center was torn down in the late 1990s and remains vacant today.

What a cool crossover Googie/Tiki/Deli story!

DC

Nice visual time line, DC ! Here's some more eye candy:

An ad for The Springs:

...apparently, it was themed: Instead of a waterfall, it had.... A SPRING! :) :

...but why was it "exotic"?

It seems people did not photograph shopping malls much (do you?) - photos of the Cameron Center are impossible to find. This photo must have been taken from Mesquite, because Aloha Jhoe's is in the background:

Here is a nice little summation of its history:

Because I used the Aloha Jhoe's architects group shot in "The Art of Tiki"...

...I got to zoom into those very cool renderings - they were even better than the final building:

There was gonna be an A-frame!:

...and if you zoom in into the zoom in, you find there was gonna be a TIKI ROOM ! :) :

Now this old O.A. list of "places we supplied" makes sense: Perhaps Aloha Jhoe's was going to be named "Tiki Joe's" at some point...or it was just a misunderstanding because of the above "Tiki Room":

Thank you Dusty and Sven for such great detailed research, although nothing remains of this restaurant I will check this spot out next time I'm in P.S. after going to Sherman's Deli on Tahquitz Way.

Those rendering closeups are AMAZING.

On 2020-01-08 10:49, HopeChest wrote:
Those rendering closeups are AMAZING.

I agree, awesome close-ups. As an added bonus, the murals inside Huddle Springs and Aloha Jhoe's were done by the famous Millard Sheets!

DC