little hawaii / hawaiian room, chicago, IL (bar)

Name:little hawaii / hawaiian room
Type:bar
Street:5100 n. western ave.
City:chicago
State:IL
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
I did a search on tiki central and came up with nothing. apparently this was a bar/ dance hall type of place that was most likely from the pre-tiki era. There are coins /tokens that turn up from this place on ebay occasionally which led me to believe this may have had an arcade connection or "dime for a dance" tokens from the ballroom age. This is the only picture of it I found. The other picture shows what it looks like today and rumor has it that the original building facade is behind the one shown. They may have just built the new facade over the old one from the looks of it.

Nice sleuthing Dave!

I think that bar was up near us, just north of Lincoln Square on Western (a bit north of Lincoln Lanes, but on Western)

The building is still there... I think its currently a defunct Korean restaurant.

That might help explain a few of the Hawaiian bars that used to exist in Uptown/Edgewater (Honolulu Harry's and the Polynesian Village at the Edgewater Beach Hotel) or maybe not... Western is far enough west it might just be a fluke, but those were also definitely 1920's era "Hawaiian" bars (as opposed to proper Tiki bars.)

--Pete

incidentally the building that replaced it was raided in a prostitution sting by the chicago police not long ago......