Yue's Lahani Haloha, Redondo Beach, CA (restaurant)

Name: Yue's Lahani Haloha
Type: Restaurant
Street: International Boardwalk / Redondo beach pier
City: Redondo Beach
State:CA
Zip: 90277
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
This is more of a fishing expedition than an informative post, I know very little about and have seen very little about this place.

We know it was owned and operated by Helen Yue of Yue's at 1828 W. Rosecrans Blvd. in Gardena and Mishima's on Western Ave. in Gardena.

[ Edited by: Bora Boris 2012-06-21 19:43 ]

I love the logo!

Originally posted by Bigbrotiki.

We know it featured the Barney West "Bad Luck" Tiki out front,

I snapped this flashy picture at Oceanic Arts. :up:

From Sven Kirsten's Book of Tiki.com :up:

and maybe it was closed after the Redondo Beach Pier fire in 1988?

The building is still standing and I think it was used in the third season of The O.C. as a nightclub?

Photo by Tiki-Kate

It's currently boarded up.

I like the drawbridge? :down:

and the only interesting details that remain. :down:

Okay so Whadda You Got?

Here's a different angle showing the Lahani Haloha sign on the side of the building. This is a scan from a book titled "Southern California's Seacoast Then & Now"
by Howard Gregory

This was a "now" shot, circa 1980:

Although the scan is actually high res, the published photo is small. Zooming in a bit yields this:

So that's what that was.

I used to walk by it and there used to be a sign on it that read, "TABU". It had a vibe that maybe it had once been a tiki place. It's not much of anything now.

The building is being demolished:

From:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_22535667/redondo-beach-waterfront-building-be-demolished

A CHANGED WATERFRONT
Redondo Beach waterfront building to be demolished
By Paul Silva, Staff Writer
Posted: 02/06/2013 06:13:44 PM PST

The octagon-shaped building that has been a signature structure on the Redondo Beach waterfront for 34 years will be torn down this week following a vote by the City Council.

The council acted Tuesday night on a recommendation by Public Works Director Michael Witzansky, who reported that the city-owned building, boarded-up and deteriorating for years due to damage from storms and the corrosive ocean air, was in imminent danger of falling down.

The council passed a resolution calling for the immediate demolition of the building, located on the west side of the International Boardwalk, "to protect against a sudden catastrophic collapse."

The building's condition worsened significantly after recent wind storms, Witzansky said Wednesday as equipment was being staged for demolition to begin this morning.

"The wind storms tore off some wood paneling that we had put it place a few years ago and that gave us a look at what was going on inside, and it was not good," he said.

City building inspectors determined that the condition of the building posed significant danger to the public and surrounding structures, he said.

The $61,000 project was awarded to New Horizons Contracting. The staff report estimated that the demolition and removal of debris would take seven to 10 days. The contract includes disposal of a small amount of asbestos, Witzansky said.

"The building will come down quickly, but the removal of the debris

will take some time," he said.
Witzansky said the concrete pad left after the building is removed will most likely serve as a public plaza with benches and potted landscaping until a new use is identified in the city's waterfront revitalization project, currently in the early design stage.

The octagonal building has been empty for at least eight years, he said, and most recently housed a restaurant downstairs and a bar with entertainment upstairs.

The hexagon-shaped restaurant/dancehall that sits near the center of King Harbor has been vacant since 1992 and is slated for demolition. (Brad Graverson / Staff Photographer)

An excavator is rolled along the International Boardwalk at the Redondo Beach Pier where it will be used to demolish the hexagon-shaped restaurant/dancehall that has been vacant since 1992 (can be seen in background). (Brad Graverson / Staff Photographer)

As of this afternoon:

Well, there goes my plans of reopning it as a tiki bar.

Hakalugi,

Were you able to see anything cool - lamps, a smashed full closet of Tikis, a hidden cabinet of logo dishes and glasswear, napkins, fridge magnets? :o

Nada, Zilch. Nothing Tiki to speak of. I spoke with one of the supervisors of the demolition team and asked if there was anything left inside from when it was a restaurant. He said only some old kitchen equipment, sinks, etc...

As far as hanging lamps go, there were about four ceiling fans with lights. Unfortunately they were about as plain as it gets:

Close up:

When one of the walls came down I saw something that was part of the decor. Nothing special and certainly not Tiki but I suppose you could call it nautical, or perhaps I should say knotical. :roll:

A wooden panel with three different rope knots:

Close up:

One other photo of possible interest. Some of the wood used to board up the exterior has fallen away revealing some details:

Close up:

If you want to see any full size photos I took, I put them up on Flickr. You can zoom in pretty good on them, maybe you'll spot something I missed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/akahaka/sets/72157632716648952/

I do have about 15 minutes of hd video of beams and walls being knocked down and crushed, If anyone is interested I can post it on YouTube.

Thank you Hakalugi,

I'm glad you were able to get over there and get those shots, now I won't have to worry that I missed something.

what a waste of another great building,When will people think they are destroying their heritage and that will be left will be Mcdonalds and Starbucks

there went that idea to loose big on a multimillion dollar tiki bar i had... should'a would'a could'ah

[ Edited by: sec.8 2013-02-08 12:09 ]

Shoot, I was in Redondo Beach last weekend and would have stopped by to say goodbye had I known.

Here is the matchbook I posted over on the Yue's thread. It belongs here to.

Sad to see these buildings disappear.

DC

Sad, indeed, but if you ever walked by the building you could tell it was in really bad condition. If anyone had wanted to reopen it, the cost of repair and upgrades alone would likely break anybody's bank. Then after startup costs, that would be a lot of money to recover. Especially in the current economic climate, the place would probably go out of business before it ever broke even.

Still, hate to see it go.