Outrigger Restaurant (Link Paola's), La Crescenta, CA (restaurant)

Name:Outrigger Restaurant (Link Paola's)
Type:restaurant
Street:2831 Honolulu Ave
City:La Crescenta
State:CA
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
Interesting menu from Link Paola's Outrigger Restaurant. Have not been able to find any other information on this place. You have to love the address on Honolulu Avenue

DC

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2009-06-02 22:07 ]

And who was Cliff Sawyer? And was he aware of the interesting evolution that his Tiki rendering had? :) :

Nice. They even ripped off the island in the menu for the rum label. Sven how old is that rum and is it any good?

Sven,

Great stuff from the archives here!

Are you sure that the tiki didn't come before the menu (or was that the chicken before the egg)?

Maybe it was carved for Link Paola's Outrigger and then copied on the Rum bottle.

DC

Never opened it, I don't like white rum. I'm afraid to, it looks rather cheap. Jeff Berry gave me the bottle, clearly for the label, and if I remember correctly, he bought it not too long ago (as in the last ten years) in a liquor store here in town.

Michael Hall and Brad Smith, the carvers of the Tiki, are originally from La Canada/Pasadena, right next to La Crescenta, and met in '56. Michael signed Tipsy's photo with 1958, but his bio I have states that that's the year when the two parted ways to go to different colleges. The rendering is dated '57, so that would make it the original -IF the photo is indeed from '58!

And no clue how it made it on that label of such an obscure rum, maybe the menu designer got the job to design a rum label.

That sloping roof hut in the palm grove really reminds me of Frances Langford's Outrigger on Jensen Beach though...DC, don't you have a postcard of that?

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-06-03 17:08 ]

On 2009-06-03 17:05, bigbrotiki wrote:
That sloping roof hut in the palm grove really reminds me of Frances Langford's Outrigger on Jensen Beach though...DC, don't you have a postcard of that?

Bigbro,

Here is the postcard. Pretty good resemblance.

With respect to the final resting place of that tiki, there never was a Trader Vic's in Montreal so where could it have ended up??

DC

I was born and raised in La Crescenta and I can honestly say I've never heard of this place. It must have been gone by the early 60s. All of Honolulu Ave. that is in La Crescenta has been residential as long as I can remember, (with the only exception being a little market on the corner of Honolulu and Pennsylvania...which I don't think is there any longer). Very interesting indeed.

On 2009-06-14 08:48, Joe Banks wrote:
I was born and raised in La Crescenta and I can honestly say I've never heard of this place. It must have been gone by the early 60s. All of Honolulu Ave. that is in La Crescenta has been residential as long as I can remember, (with the only exception being a little market on the corner of Honolulu and Pennsylvania...which I don't think is there any longer). Very interesting indeed.

It looks like 2831 Honolulu Ave. is not residential:
http://tinyurl.com/mqsucs

Ah yes...you're right. There's a little strip of Honolulu just before it turns into Montrose from La Crescenta. I remember that there was a little Mexican restaurant in that strip mall. I wonder if that was it. I might just have to go poking around up there today and see...

There was also a kona kai inn in La Crescenta,
"Vince Dundee's Kona Kai" at 3034 Foothill Blvd.

On 2009-06-14 08:31, Dustycajun wrote:
With respect to the final resting place of that tiki, there never was a Trader Vic's in Montreal so where could it have ended up??
DC

You are right there DC. However, there was the Kon Tiki in Montreal, as you know, which opened in 1958. There was a Trader Vic's in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at the Hotel Toronto which is the next Province over.

Maybe over the years Smith either forgot or got a little confused. I know it does happen over the years as some of these little details that we so often search for and consider to be a big deal are quite small to the people that were there.
We need photographic evidence of that one I think!

TabooDan

Mystery solved as what came first, the chicken or the egg: Michael Hall graciously replied to my queery:

" Brad (my ocean oddities) partner and I copied our tiki from the Link Paola menu. I don't remember where we got the menu but there was a neighbor down the street from my parents (we carved tikis in the driveway of the house) who was a Paola. Art Paola, I think, and I recall he owned a car dealership in Pasadena or Glendale - or somewhere near by."

So who is gonna look into the Paolas? :)

Sven,

Nice research there. It was the menu first!

Now if we could only find out where that Tiki ended up in Canada.

DC

On 2009-06-03 15:33, uncle trav wrote:
Nice. They even ripped off the island in the menu for the rum label. Sven how old is that rum and is it any good?

I have a bottle.
It sucks.
It's now a prop hanging from my bar.

Here is the matchbook from Link Paola's Outrigger from ebay. Anybody spot that Tiki in Canada yet?

DC