Opened in December of 1975.

Located at the Northland Shopping Center. Mrs. O'Hara was the original Manager.

One of their main dining areas was the "Banyan Tree Room".

This restaurant hosted lots of live pop music entertainment, but also included Polynesian groups such as "The Aloha" Polynesian dance review and "Roselani and Her Royal Tonga Islanders" (from the Polynesian Village in Disney World).

There were several Hu Ke Lau locations across the East Coast. This may or may not have been a part of the family chain which included several under this same name but it's a good bet it was since it has the same logo and drink menu.

On June 21, 1979, this location began offering Italian food. It closed July 16th, 1981 for re-modeling, to reopen as the Luna Key.

Vern's Tiki Bar opened in March of 2025 in the back of the Public Domain craft cocktail bar, where Neon Tiger used to be located.

The bar is named after Vernon Burke, a young bootlegger from the 1930s who also ran a speakeasy. The owner, Van Voorst, who’s a history buff, saw a 1932 article about Vern’s arrest, at a time when he and his brother-in-law were smuggling booze in Wisconsin and Minnesota. “I thought that’s kind of a fun story so let’s just name a tiki bar after Vern,” he said.

The bar is minimally decorated with some lauhala matting, thatch, tropical leaf wallpaper, some tropical plants, and dark booths with outdoor patio lights strung across the ceiling.

It's not an over-the-top immersive environment like some of the leading tiki bars around the country, but there is always room to grow and they have received good reviews on their tiki cocktails, which are served in inexpensive tiki mugs.

It does not appear that they have a house mug as of yet.

Opened April 1st, 2025.

The original 4th Street location for Fong's Pizza closed on March 9th, 2025. This closing was part of a planned relocation with plans to reopen in early April, here, in the former Peace Tree Brewing Co. space in the Market District.

The new location offers double the seating capacity, expanded parking, a patio, and a pick-up window.

Chef Dennis Epps plans to expand the menu with new noodle and rice dishes, salads, appetizers, and late-night options.

This complex was located on the South side of McDowell, just West of 68th St., and included Polynesian Paradise condominiums (built in 1962), The Polynesian Dairy Queen (built in 1964), and The Polynesian Plaza (built in 1964).

The Polynesian Paradise condominiums were built in 1962 by Kaufman and Broad. The condominiums are located just to the South of the Polynesian Dairy Queen, which (along with the rest of the Polynesian Plaza) was built by Haver & Nunn two years after Polynesian Paradise. Based on historic aerials, there was a street entrance to Polynesian Paradise that went right by the Polynesian Dairy Queen. The mall and condos were demolished in the 1990s.

The former Dairy Queen was referred to as the Polynesian Dairy Queen in phone books at that time. It originally had a thatched roof reaching 42' in height. It was open for about 20 years, closing in the mid 80s. After its incarnation as a Dairy Queen, this building housed an Enterprise Rent-A-Car for many years but it was left vacant since 2009. In 2014, the building was put to use as office space for Scottsdale RV. In 2019, the building was dismantled. The A-frame structure was recreated at a different location in 2022 for Oliver's restaurant (still open as of 2025 and shown in last photo below). Some of the rocks were used from the previous location.

Cora Irene Sund was born in 1910 and died in 1974.

*Her gravestone says born in "1909" but that appears to be an error according to her obituary and other sources.

In any case, she had a remarkable impact on tiki and cocktail history. She built-out Don the Beachcombers as a real business, expanding it across the United States. While Donn Beach's name often overshadows her impact on the business's history, Sunny Sund emerged as the visionary leader, overseeing its growth from a modest twenty-four-seat bar into a flourishing chain of million-dollar restaurants.

Sund met and married Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt (Donn Beach) in Hollywood in the 1930s, with Gantt opening Don’s Beachcomber, the first of what would later be known as exotic restaurants. The bar was wildly successful and Sund became Gantt’s business partner, raising money to expand the business, which they began (first to Chicago) in 1940. The marriage didn’t last, but Sund and Gantt remained business partners, with Gantt as figurehead and host, and Sund running the growing business behind the scenes. Through the 40s and 50s, Sund grew Don the Beachcomber’s to some sixteen locations, selling the business to Getty Enterprises in 1968.

Sunny died on January 8th and was laid to rest Saturday, January 12th, 1974 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. She was 64 years old.

This tiki adjacent location opened in the 1980s and closed in 2000.

No tikis to be seen and the Caribbean is not the South Pacific, so wrong body of water....however this was a hugely influential bar and (along with pop culture influences like the TV series LOST) has inspired many modern tiki locations. Last Rites bar in San Francisco seems to echo the theme and carry on the crash landing tradition. The Jet Set bar in Newburgh, NY also had a plane fuselage for customers to sit in (closed in 2024). Many other tiki bars incorporate aviation history into their interiors, from newspapers about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to propellers and other repurposed plane parts, to aviation pinups, or nostalgic 1960s travel posters and memorabilia from the Golden Era of plane travel. Aviation may not be quite as popular as nautical on the Tiki Venn Diagram of sub-categories, but it definitely has a presence. Perhaps the future of this trend lies with Mothership in San Diego -- Mothership goes sci-fi and explores the crash landing theme on an alien planet!

The Caribbean Zone was located in the SOMA district of San Francisco. It was hidden under a now defunct freeway overpass in an alley behind a bus terminal, next door to what was then Club DV8. Their kitchen was actually located inside of Club DV8, and when it went under during the dot com bubble, so did the Caribbean Zone. They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. Literally.

The theme of the restaurant was an airplane that crash landed in a tropical jungle. It was a full restaurant that served Caribbean fare, such as Jamaican Jerk Chicken, and fried plantains. Drinks were also Caribbean style, with choices like a Bahama Mama, Goomba Boomba, or a Mai Tai with pineapple juice served in a brandy snifter.

You would approach a small looking quansit hut in the middle of what was then a semi industrial wasteland. You entered through a plain non-descript door, and then you would be immediately whisked away to a tropical paradise.

The back bar was actually the fuselage of a DC-3, at one time the actual tour plane for the Doobie Bros. Someone bought it, removed the wings, and installed it as the back bar. The cool thing was, you could actually go up into the plane, and have cocktails! The waitresses would come up and take your order, then return with your drinks. And they had placed small tv screens on the outside of the plane windows, so when you looked outside, it gave the illusion that you were flying.

There was a lot of great tropical foliage throughout the restaurant, and there was a huge waterfall feature in the back, that was big and loud enough that you could not carry a conversation if you were seated next to it. There also was a banquet room that sat about a dozen people, and it was done up like a cave with stone walls.

This restaurant appears to have been open in the early 1970s on 7th Avenue near 51st Street at the Hotel Taft.

The floral patterns on the booths and the carpet have a very 70s vibe. Other than this, and some groovy 70s advertising, much of the decor and concept seems to have been "borrowed" whole-heartedly from the Trader Vic's and Steve Crane franchises.

The 1968 demolition of Madison Square Garden, the increasing presence of unsavory businesses in the area, and the desire for newer, more elegant hotels contributed to the gradual decay of the Taft Hotel. In 1974, Urban Renewal Housing and Development Corporation, headed by Gilbert M. Federbush, acquired the hotel from Lawrence A. Wien. At the time, the hotel was struggling with a 51% occupancy rate and losing $80,000 a month. A year later, the hotel fell into receivership and was foreclosed on by its lender, the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Soon after, the hotel was converted to mixed use and sections were re-named.

It would appear this was a brief flash-in-the pan restaurant during the early 70s before closing.

Open at least as early as 1964.

At the Imperial Restaurant of the Imperial Motel. Featured "American/Chinese/& Polynesian Cuisine".

As can be seen below, their signature tiki was located just outside the front door in front of a lava stone wall.

Joe Chastek was first introduced to Polynesia when he and a high school buddy stowed away to the Philippines when they were both 17. Joe was one of the first to open a club with the South Seas motif. His first pre-Tiki bar was the Zamboanga. His second was the Tradewinds. His third was Vagabond's House.

The Trade Winds was opened during the war, in December 1944. He kept the same monkey theme that worked for him at the Zamboanga.

The original long and low building was Pike’s El Rancho back in the 1940’s.

Arne and Carolyn Jacobson added the A-frame and theming. They opened Arne's Royal Hawaiian Motel in 1957 and it closed in 2009.

Originally, those staying in one of the 43 rooms could enjoy color TV, a rec room, tennis court, and a swimming pool.

The rooms featured Hawaiian inspired motifs, including palm tree murals and rattan furniture.

The iconic sign and the impressive A-frame with curved beams (even more impressive in an interior view) caught the eye of many a traveler on their way to Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, after its closing, it became a focus for graffiti and vandalism.

Many hoped that someone would re-open or salvage this site, but it was not to be.

The building was leveled in 2025.

Built in 1961, this complex has 42 units and is 2 stories tall.

Pop Polynesian features include a lava wall, outrigger beams, an A-frame entrance, and a pool hut (originally with large outrigger extensions, but now long since cut away).

Smaller photos below from 2002 provide contrast to larger 2025 background image.

Most recently, the building has had a severe pruning of all its palms and tropical foliage and many of the outrigger beam extensions have been cropped. This, combined with a much lighter paint job than in previous years makes the property much less "exotic", but it still survives and with the original name intact as of 2025 (see background image).

Built in 1955.

Located in the Point Loma area of San Diego, this motel was right across the street from the famous Fisherman's Landing fishing docks.

Originally, this motel featured the name in a very cool font sign along with a large actual outrigger canoe out front.

The building is still here but appears to have been converted to condos and has been re-named several times and barely resembles its former self.

No outrigger canoe to be seen...

There was also an Outrigger Motel on Atlantic Avenue in Ormond Beach, Florida (now the Outrigger Beach Club Resort) but there appears to be no connection to the San Diego motel other than the name.