Picking the Trader Vics IB&G Sarasota

As several have said before me, it is no surprise that the Trader Vics Sarasota went under. Bad location and mediocre food. But they had a couple really nice signature tikis near the front and I always said " I'm just waiting for this place to go under so I can buy these". Well, it went under as we suspected. I got a lead on the owners and told them I wanted to buy some of their stuff. At first they were cold to the idea, but when I offered some serious money for the pair, they perked up. I met one one of the brothers that own it and went through and picked 3 smaller tikis out as well and a big ass float ball. They wanted a large chunk of change, but this was a one time opportunity. I was the first person into the building since they closed so I was getting first dibbs on what they had.

Turns out, other than what I bought, most of the remaining stuff was Indonesian low end stuff. They said that TV corporate had sold them to the restaurant, as well as providing the interior designer. I was surprised to hear the interior designer was from corporate, I would have thought it was a local designer because of the Florida take on tiki.

Anyway, I got a 8' Maori style tiki and a 6' root ball tiki as well as the small ones. I saved them from ending up in a Jimmy Buffet bar.

Robotiki
Mira Mar League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

[ Edited by: robotiki 2017-03-03 07:12 ]

Nice work!

Well done! I have to confess to being a bit jealous though....

[ Edited by: LostIsland 2013-08-24 13:18 ]

Really cool. Way to "adopt" these to a good home. :wink: Your generous acquisitions have the admiration of this Tikiphile.

Awesome score Robotiki!

Well done! It is nice to know they are going to a good home. Now you can open a good tiki bar in Sarasota with them!

Luckily we had my friend Steve with us. Not only did he have a truck with a ramp, he could lift twice what me and my other computer jock friend could lift.

Holding the tikis to the ground were the biggest screws I have ever seen in my life. Over 6" long. I had intended on leaving the L brackets on the tikis but backing those screws out of the wood was a helluva lot easier than backing them out of concrete. So the root ball tiki will get new custom iron straps that I'll get my blacksmithing brother to forge to keep him from falling over and crushing someone.

I also picked up this trio, including the most foul female tiki (middle) I've run across. I shall dub her Cruella, Goddess of PMS.

Sad its gone - but as stated was a tough fit. Glad you got those tikis and other stuff. I have a bunch of pictures of them from my many visits.

INJOY!

Now I'm glad I got 6 bottles of grog mix from there last visit.