Frances Langford's Outrigger was a landmark of Florida's Treasure Coast, from the time it opened in 1961 until it closed in 1988. It was the "hobby" of Hollywood star of radio, film, and television Frances Langford, who had a life-long love of all things Polynesian.

Langford and her first husband was Jon Hall, who had been raised in Tahiti, and was a matinee star of adventure films, many in tropical settings. The couple purchased 400 acres of land in Jensen Beach just before WWII, but the land did not get developed until after she had returned from the war. By then, she had spent years touring around the South Pacific performing in USO shows with Bob Hope. The couple split amicably in 1955, just as Langford was beginning to shape her vision for the land. She soon married Ralph Evinrude, of Evinrude motors, and it was with Evinrude that Langford's long-held vision became reality.

Langford reportedly aimed to model her Polynesian restaurant on the famous Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood. She hired Hollywood set designer Ed Lawrence, who had also reportedly worked on some of the Don the Beachcomber restaurants. He designed a beautiful restaurant, full of Polynesian artifacts, tapa cloth, bamboo, thatch, and A-frames. Work began in 1959, and the restaurant opened in 1961. The restaurant sat on the shore of the Indian River, just inland from the Atlantic Ocean, and the development included a marina that was dredged alongside the restaurant. Lawrence remained as the restaurant's manager until his retirement in 1977, after which he remained on the payroll and continued to assist with the restaurant.

Langford leveraged her star power, and featured heavily in the branding and marketing of the restaurant. Langford was often there as hostess, sometimes performing for her guests. She attracted many famous figures to the restaurant, including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Jackie Gleason, Burl Ives, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Prince of Tonga.

Langford had a large Polynesian-themed private structure built on her property nearby to entertain guests, and also house peacocks and swans, she called it The Hut. Her 110-foot yacht, The Chanticleer, was often moored in the marina and was a dramatic sight for visitors.

In 1988, the restaurant was sold to new owners, who stripped out all of the theming and turned it into the Key West Restaurant, to capitalize on the then-current Jimmy Buffett craze. The locals were reportedly horrified. The building then stood empty for a few years, until becoming the Dolphin Bar and Shrimp House in the 1990s, which remains to this day. The Dolphin Bar was created with Lanford's blessing, and she was a regular through her later years. The building shape is unchanged, and some carved posts and beams from the Outrigger days can still be seen.

Frances Langford passed away in 2005, at 92. She is still fondly remembered in the area, especially for her philanthropic support of the area and environmental causes. An exhibit dedicated to Langford, including artifacts from the Outrigger, are on view at the nearby Elliott Museum.

*NOTE: A couple of the restaurant cocktail menu lists are shown below. You can tell which is older by the jump in prices. Still, by today's standards, either price list would be a bargain.

Little Buddy Hideaway opened in May 2016 in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Closed in 2020.

With a nod to that famous three-hour tour of our childhood, Little Buddy was built with a whole lot of love for all things tiki. Tucked away behind an unassuming door in The Annex, this humble, lo-fi hideaway got the full island treatment with a thatched roof-covered banquette, old-school fish tank, Frankie Avalon movies on repeat, and a life-sized hammerhead shark quietly descending from the rafters.

The menu of tropical cocktails was mostly originals or their takes on classics, and there was a small menu of bar snacks available.

The Reef Bar is within the Caliente Tropics Resort in Palm Springs, a historic tiki hotel that opened in 1964.

The bar at the Caliente Tropics has changed names, theming, and management many times over the years. Originally, the bar was the Congo Room restaurant, a steakhouse. After the Congo Room years, the bar adopted its most-used Reef Bar name, and there was also a brief period in the late-'00s when it was Hawaiian Bill's.

After many years with the bar in flux, as of March 4th, 2017 it re-opened under the management of Rory Snyder, perhaps best known as the organizer of the annual Tiki Caliente event at the Caliente Tropics (and Circa Caliente). The bar has large windows and a patio overlooking the hotel's swimming pool, and rather than fight the light, Snyder aims to differentiate from the other tiki bars in town and create a space that blends the mid-century history of Palm Springs with the classic tiki elements on the grounds. A menu of tropical drinks and food is available. See cocktail menu below...

In addition to mugs and glassware, the bar also sports its own line of branded rum bottles with label designs by Anthony Carpenter.

Opened in 1959, Tiki Bob's Mainland Rendezvous, more commonly shortened to Tiki Bob's Mainland, was the second location of the fabled Tiki Bob's to be located in San Francisco, the original was at Post & Taylor. This short-lived location catered to the nearby businessmen by offering "lingerie shows" where young women walked through the restaurant in their skivvies. Ostensibly, the idea was that these models would inspire the businessmen to then purchase the lingerie to bring home for their wives. Lingerie shows lived on in the neighborhood for quite some time -- nearby Sutter Station tavern was still doing them as late as the 2000s.

Today, the same space now holds Pagan Idol.

Malia Polynesian Room was inside Bill Green's Golden Dragon in Asbury Park, New Jersey. It opened in late 1968, and didn't last very long.

Mr. Green had run this site previously as the "Rustic Lodge" nightclub before remaking it into the "Golden Dragon" restaurant and then he decided to try rebranding it yet again a year later as the "Countrypolitan" nightclub. That must not have worked either, as Green turned over the site to a new owner that same year and it became Danny's Bar and Package store before being destroyed by a fire in June 1970.

Today is it known because of an album recorded there of a performance by Sam Makia and his Hawaiian Islanders, called "Live Hawaiian Party." The address was Coleman at Summerfield; Summerfield no longer intersects with Coleman, but a look at satellite photos from the era shows a building at that location that today is a parking lot.

Tiki Underground was opened in February 2017 by Sean and Jessie Coffey.

The large space was lined with bac-bac matting and bamboo, with plenty of thatch. There were carved Witco pieces, and light-up moai.

They served cocktails and beer and also had a food menu and live music.

November 24, 2021 was Tiki Underground’s last call in this Hudson location. The bar moved to a new space at 1832 Front St, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221 in September of 2022.

Wahtiki Island Lounge was opened in Central Hong Kong in January 2017 by owner Philip Lee. Lee's father, Shi Wah Lee, worked for Trader Vic's for many years, including managing the London Trader Vic's during the '70s-'90s, and later helping Trader Vic's open locations around Europe and the Middle East. Philip Lee continued in the family tradition by opening his own tiki bar and Polynesian restaurant. The decor included bamboo, tapa cloth, and tikis, traditional Polynesian restaurant food, and tiki drinks served in tiki mugs.

Unfortunately, the restaurant was unable to come to terms on its lease agreement and announced its closure for Saturday, August 12th, 2023.

Tiki Island is a Chinese/Polynesian restaurant that opened in the mid-1980s in Medford, just north of Boston. The front area has a large moai, and the main dining room has a huge painted mural of a tropical scene, with a few tikis around the restaurant. The food includes some mid-century Polynesian-style Chinese favorites, including a flaming pu-pu platter, and tropical drinks are served in tiki mugs. A banquet hall in the back of the restaurant is unthemed.

Tiki Island has a sister restaurant in Hyannis, Tiki Port.

Luau Lounge opened inside Players, a video game arcade on Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf, in 2012. The bar and restaurant overlooks San Francisco Bay, with large windows to take in the view. The decor includes tapa cloth, beachcomber lamps and tikis, but with full daylight on one side and a riotous arcade on the other, the mood is not one of escape despite some nice decor, including some Eugene Savage Matson Menu art on the far wall.

There is a full restaurant menu, and the tropical drinks menu on their website skews to the sweet and fruity end. However, that online drinks menu appears to date to 2013-2015 and the newer one from 2019-2022 is much improved. Both are shown below...

Diamond Head was a Polynesian-themed Chinese restaurant, owned by the Shao family. Some contemporary advertisements give the city as Bethesda, others as Chevy Chase, both are the same location. There was a second location in Washington, DC.

Appears to have been open at least from 1970-1972.

This Diamond Head location opened in 1978 in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. It had a sister restaurant in Chevy Chase/Bethesda.

The Don the Beachcomber location in Marina del Rey opened in 1970. It is one of the "UFO" shaped versions of the restaurant, with a round building topped by a low-slung wraparound roof with a pointed top. The restaurant makes an appearance in the 1989 Patrick Dempsey film Loverboy as "Tiki Joe's". The restaurant was closed by the mid-'90s. The building is still there, attached to the Marina del Rey Hotel, but underwent a dramatic remodel in the early 2010s, and is no longer recognizable.