Eli "The Original Beachcomber" Hedley ran his Island Trade Store on Beach Blvd in Midway City in the 1950s-1960s.

Today, the location is now home to a Jack-In-The Box fast food restaurant.

In Disneyland, Eli also ran “The Island Trade Store” gift shop in Adventureland for about a decade, which was located where the Bazaar is today.

Eli is a legend among fans of Polynesian Pop, his carvings and decor graced countless tiki bars and locations, and his shop featured tikis by other noted carvers such as Milan Guanko.

Today, Hedley's grandson, Ben Bassham (Bamboo Ben) continues the tradition.

Sea and Jungle Shop sold tiki and jungle themed props from their Glendale store for decades. The last owners ran it for over 24 years, starting in 1962. They were competitors with Oceanic Arts (who opened in 1956) and later benefactors of the younger store -- although it's not clear how long Sea and Jungle were open before they were bought out by the last owners -- but they probably existed in one form or another since the 1940s.

Sea and Jungle props decorated Rick’s Cafe Americaine in “Casablanca" (1942), and carried natives over the waves in “Mutiny on the Bounty”(1962) And they adorned countless other television and movie sets. They also supplied much of the decor for Disneyland, especially the Jungle Cruise ride (opened in 1955).

The front of their site was known for giant carved tikis and in later years for a giant pink fiberglass elephant that became kind of a company mascot.

How did it all start?

It was originally opened by Victoria White and "Jungle Jim" Joslin in the 1940s-1950s. (They titled themselves "Specialists in Tropical Atmosphere" on old postcards).

The matriarch of the last family to own the business, Virginia Langdon, was 17 and enrolled at Hollywood High School, when she eloped to Hawaii with her 16-year-old boyfriend because her parents opposed the marriage. They lived there five years, developing a lifelong passion for things tropical, their daughters recall.

The couple returned to Glendale and bought Sea and Jungle in 1962. There they ran a thriving business, making occasional forays to the South Pacific and Africa to replenish stock. Their children drifted naturally into the business, but it was Beverly Achtien (Virginia's daughter) who managed the shop in recent years.

Young people liked the place because it sold wacky items, she said. So did movie stars. Comedian Pee Wee Herman once bought a lamp shaped like a giant clump of yellow bananas. John Wayne favored nautical gear. Dorothy Lamour bought decorative wall hangings for her bar.

Sven Kirsten (author of The Book of Tiki) fondly remembers visiting Sea and Jungle when he first came out to Los Angeles and buying a couple of smaller items. Now, looking back, he wishes he had bought much more, but this was before his dedication to tiki had firmly taken root and nobody knew that Sea and Jungle's days were numbered. Sven has a great vintage ad from the store in his book, Tiki Pop - page 92.

When Sea and Jungle closed their doors on June 30th, 1986, Oceanic Arts bought two truckloads of various décor for $600 from them. They even gave Bob and LeRoy their office chairs, source-books, and their Customer List. This last item helped to get Oceanic Arts started in the Movie Supply and Rental business.

The Chi Chi opened in 1936 as the Desert Grill. Eventually, Jack Freeman sold his financial interest in the profitable eatery to his business partner, Irwin Schuman, who revamped it as a fancy Polynesian-style restaurant and bar.

Schuman christened his new venture Chi Chi Grill Cocktail Lounge in 1938 — inspired by an exotic portrait of a topless Hawaiian girl painted by Edgar Leeteg he’d seen in an art gallery on a trip to Honolulu.

Credit for the club’s name also has been attributed to Palm Springs artist Jack Church, who reportedly dubbed the painting “the Chi Chi girl” because of her sexy expression. For good luck, Schuman displayed a copy of Leeteg’s portrait, Hina Rapa, on the wall of his cocktail lounge. Onlookers found the image of the smiling native girl so captivating that Schuman blithely had it reprinted on cocktail napkins, dishware, glasses, matchbooks, swizzle sticks, menus, and playing cards. These dinner-table items quickly became prized souvenirs.

“I did not give Chi Chi permission to use my Hina Rapa to reproduce in any way,” complained Leeteg in an angry letter from his home in Tahiti. “The least they could do is to give me a credit line, but that is too much to expect from a Hollywood gin mill.”

The unexpected controversy helped publicize the tropical-themed restaurant; and Schuman opened a second Chi Chi bar in 1946 on Santa Catalina Island. More locations followed in Riverside, Hollywood, Long Beach, and San Diego.

The media described this giant supper club as “The second biggest nightclub west of the Mississippi,” where some of the brightest names in showbiz gathered for more than 25 years.

Practically any New York and Las Vegas headliner that ever took a bow performed at the Chi Chi in its heyday: song and dance pioneers such as Eddie Cantor, Sophie Tucker, Rudy Vallee, the Ritz Brothers, Lena Horne, and Mickey Rooney, along with virtuoso performers such as Tony Martin, Jane Russell, Hoagy Carmichael, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Mathis, and Peggy Lee.

The Chi Chi lasted until 1977 when it was torn down and replaced by The Desert Fashion Plaza.

From their website: "Black Hat bar is a Caribbean pub with tropical cocktails by Dima Sokolov, island cuisine and an oceanfront hut interior. 100 kinds of rum!" They have a tiki mascot for their logo and use tiki mugs, but many of them are the pop culture variety. There appears to be at least one large tiki carving in the main bar area. Most of the decor is beach shack style with a little bit of pub thrown in. This bar appears to have inherited the Aloha Bar Facebook page, as all the most recent posts from that now closed venue are directing traffic to Black Hat.

From their website:

"The team that brought us Pagan Idol was inspired to create another tiki bar - one that would pay honor and homage to the late, great Skipper Kent and his dream of a place where his guests would enjoy wonderful drinks and receive extraordinary island hospitality. In 2019, The Zombie Village opened in San Francisco's Tenderloin District shocking those who couldn't believe that the Bay Area would come to have another tiki bar, and delighting everyone who has walked through its doors.

The bar's design not only includes tiki elements reminiscent of the South Pacific, but it also celebrates the spirit of the Caribbean, a region synonymous with fine rums and hospitable, fun-lovin people. A team of renowned tiki artists was assembled in order to create a real, authentic tropical paradise. Ivan Mora, Bamboo Ben Bassham, Crazy Al Evans, Woody Miller, Bosko Hrnjak, and Mikel "MP" Parton all contributed custom works for the bar. The beverage program, designed by Doc Parks, boasts an array of exotic flavors and unique spirit blends. It takes inspiration from Skipper Kent's Zombie Village cocktail menu and includes drink names originated by the Skipper himself."

Strong Water Anaheim is a tropical, nautical bar with Asian inspired food and a small hidden room full of wonder based on the mid-1800s mysterious shipwreck of the vessel Clementine. Brought to you by the owners of Blind Rabbit, this Packing House-adjacent bar has a whole back bar dedicated just to gin and also serves up tropical libations and Asian-Hawaiian inspired appetizers and entrees. It does have some tikis throughout, a fountain shaped like a giant moss-covered skull, and a tiki mug cabinet with several shelves of mugs -- vintage and from other establishments and events.

Last Rites is a "Polynesian Noir" bar that opened in San Francisco's Duboce Triangle/Castro area in June 2018. The bar goes deep on story: the setting is the fuselage of a crashed plane deep in a jungle, with drinks served in "scavenged" bottles cut into glasses. Beyond the plane are vine-encrusted stone ruins, decorated with huge stylized skulls. The team behind Last Rites, owners Justin Lew and Ian Scalzo, have been active in the San Francisco craft cocktail scene for many years, and they have enlisted bar & restaurant designer James Lagoc and fabricator Brian Sullivan to shape the space. Drinks are a departure from classic tiki, while retaining the experimental use of flavors.

The South Seas Tiki Lounge was a tiki bar in Charleston, South Carolina, opened in July 2017.

The small space had outdoor seating, with an interior lounge. The menu included tropical drinks and small plates.

Owner Jonathan Buckley (owner of the nearby Scarecrow & Co.) is a longtime tikiphile with a large tiki mug collection that was displayed in the bar.

They received rave reviews for their cocktail program and seemed to be doing vey well. However, on January 3, 2019, South Seas posted on Instagram that they were closing up their Ann Street spot, which included both the tiki lounge and sushi bar.

Their IG caption read, “Thanks Charleston, it’s time to wrap things up here and move our Tiki Collection to a New City."

Buckley later stated that the section of the building they were in was always defined as a space for semi-permanent pop-ups and that the plan was always to eventually close down and move to a new location outside of Charleston.

Lost Isle Adventures gives tours of Morro Bay in their "tiki boat," which is clad in bamboo and thatch, adorned with tiki masks, and has a small tiki bar aboard where they serve drinks. They also have a store in their ticket office, where they sell tiki mugs and carved tikis. They also offer boats for rental.

Lono opened in June 2017. It was a large restaurant and bar in Hollywood, themed to Hollywood's yesteryear of tropical glamour, the pre-tiki era of nearby restaurants such as Bob Brook's Seven Seas and Don the Beachcomber. The restaurant's target era was closer to the '30s and '40s than the '50s and '60s, and as such the look of the space was more tropical-lite than truly tiki. The drink menu was a mix of classic tiki drinks and modern takes on tiki, carefully crafted and presented. The food menu was mainly small plates of flavors from around the world, or on the other end of the food spectrum, you could reserve a complete "luau" experience.

NOTE: Was listed as "Temporarily Closed" throughout 2022-2023 with no clear date to re-open but then listed for lease on Loop.net in 2023...which says it all...

The Islander Apartments were built in 1962, in the Riverglen neighborhood of Santa Ana, California. The entry is a swooped A-frame structure, with a tiki underneath. More tikis can be found supporting a second A-frame structure by the pool area. The apartment complex has a carved wooden sign. More free-standing tikis likely existed and have long since rotted away or been removed, but the tiki poles for the A-frames still remain.

The community consists of 63 one-story units in 1, 2, and 3 bedroom arrangements. The property sits on 5 landscaped acres.

Test Pilot is a "tiki-inspired" craft cocktail bar in Santa Barbara. It opened in September 2016.

The decor is tiki-lite, with just a few tiki masks on one wall. The walls are painted turquoise, and there is a light beachy feel to the space.

The drinks, some served in tiki mugs, are modified versions of tiki cocktails, and some originals.

They have an excellent selection of rums and a strong bar program.

*NOTE: You can reserve the Sea Wolf Room (see last 2 photos) for yourself and your friends as a space for group gatherings, meetings, and parties.