Monte Proser's Beachcomber - Above the Winter Garden Theatre - New York

Manhattan, New York, New York, United States

Monte Proser was one of the first to lift Donn Beach's Don the Beachcomber concept, and he lifted the famous Zombie drink right along with it. Proser was largely responsible for introducing the Zombie to the east coast. He started with "Monte Proser's Zombie," a bar created for the New York World's Fair in 1939. Based on that success, he opened Monte Proser's Beachcomber at the end of that same year, December 26th, 1939, in a space above the Winter Garden Theatre in the Theater District north of Times Square. The interiors were created by Clark Robinson.

Proser's chain of Beachcomber restaurants grew to include locations in Miami Beach, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, Baltimore, Maryland and Providence, Rhode Island.

Don sued Monte over the Beachcomber name and eventually won. The Manhattan Beachcomber closed shortly after May of 1942 when it was announced that Don finally won his lawsuit and was awarded substantial (for the time) damages and exclusive use of the name Beachcomber.

By 1943, the Manhattan location had become a new nightclub, Zanzibar (which moved the following year to the old Hurricane space).

Chen's Singapore then stepped into the space and ran from as early as 1946 through as late as 1957, serving a menu of tiki/tropical cocktails. This same space was later occupied by the Lanai (1961 - 1962) and the Hawaii Kai (1962 - 1989).