The tiki world mourns the death of Marvin Chin owner
of Chin Tiki Detroit. He passed away on thursday,
April 26th after a long hospitalization. Marvin
opened Chin Tiki in the 1960's. Closed in the early
70's it remains shuttered but intact in downtown
Detroit. He opened the doors of this famous tiki
oasis once a year for us tiki lovers at the end of our
annual Motor City Tiki Art show and party. Tiki
lovers were free to roam this tiki gem and Marvin was
always ready to tell us stories of his beloved tiki
restaurant and sign copies of Chin Tiki postcards. He
will be dearly missed by all of here in the Detroit
tiki scene. The family promises to let us take one
last tour of the Chin Tiki this year during Motor City
Tiki, everyone is invited to attend as we honor Marvin
this year at our annual event. Sadly, this will
probably be the last tour we do of this historic tiki
restaurant as Chin Tiki is for sale and many local
developers are jumping at the chance to buy it for
it's valuable land. Marvin is survived by his wife
Kitty, daughters Debbie and Valierie and son Marlin.
Marlin is the owner of Chin Tiki Livonia and host of
our annual tiki party. If anyone desires more info
please email me at [email protected].
Nancy Hay
The Cat's Meow

anyone wanting info on the last motor city tiki show at chin's, please stay tuned to the website http://www.motorcitytiki.com for more details.....

..this is an unfortunate loss for our tiki community...I had been to all the motor city tiki events and was thrilled to chat with marvin many times..he was so happy that tiki was making a come-back and happy to accommodate the organizers in any way to help make those tiki events the awesome time they were.....i hope to see alot of you out there for the last one.....I hear that alot of the decor that is salvageable from the downtown chin location will be moved to the livonia location, for all to enjoy.....including the larger tikis and masks.......the livonia location is small, as some of you know, so imagine it with all the new tiki additions crammed into it!!......he will be missed. The best we can do is to show up and have a good time....he would have liked that.......

What a bummer :cry:.My thoughts go out to his family.

Cheers Marvin, you will be missed.
:drink: :drink: :drink: :drink:

I never had the privelage of a visit to Chin Tiki but this is unfortunate news. I can imagine those granted special tours by Marvin will fondly remember them.

Perhaps some well-healed Tikiophile could rescue the wonderful facade from oblivion.

Here are some other Chin Tiki threads with some nice pix.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=16411&forum=2

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=14239&forum=1&hilite=chin%20tiki

[ Edited by: hodadhank 2006-04-29 00:12 ]

:cry:

I'm just happy he lived to see a new interest in his creation.

Here's to you Marvin... :drink:

-Z