Hurricane Cove, Avalon, Santa Catalina Island was a pre and post-war restaurant and bar (1937-1979), located at 305 Crescent.

It would be considered pre-tiki and followed in the footsteps of the Hurricane Bars in New York and San Francisco who also took their iconography and theme from the 1937 film, starring Dorothy Lamour.

Hurricane Cove once featured a huge semi-circle bamboo piano bar. It was originally owned by Oscar Griffith (1895-1974). David Renton, was the architect for the Wrigley Family and designed the structures on the Island per the Wrigley request, (including the Casino). The Wrigley family did not want any tropical themed structures, but Oscar and the owners of the Waikiki Hotel were able to prevail and had their businesses constructed the way they wanted.

Oscar had a band, Jimmy Lowe and the Sons of Hawaii, who played regularly at his place. Oscar had after hours for top named entertainers that played at the Avalon Casino Ballroom including Benny Goodman. Oscar had the place built per his vision which included a bamboo bar in 1938. He had lights, fans and audio to simulate a hurricane which were activated every hour. Oscar imported an expert in bamboo construction from California.

In 1957, Hurricane Cove was managed by Johnny Piacentini and Vince Scari.

Los Angeles attorney, Don Lake, who had done work for Oscar, Griffith purchased Hurricane Cove and had it remodeled.

More than 40 years after it first opened, Hurricane Cove was destroyed by a fire on March 4, 1979. So was the 20-unit Waikiki Hotel.

The Surf Rider opened in Bakersfield, California in June of 1961. It was the restaurant and lounge for the Wonder Lodge motor hotel. The motor hotel cost an estimated 2 million, and consisted of a 2-story structure with 120 suites and guest rooms, and a pool out back surrounded by manicured grounds.

Both Oceanic Arts and Ed Brownlee worked on the project with Oceanic Arts furnishing much of the interior and Ed handling the exterior decor.

The interior held 170 persons and featured a huge Tahitian fish trap on the ceiling, South Pacific murals, and plenty of carvings and other tropical decor.

This exterior featured Ed's own carvings based on New Ireland tribal art and an application of large abalone shells.

Black & White photos below are from earliest days of construction and Color photos are after total completion.

Later, by 1970, the venue was re-themed as "The Westerner".

The Mission Inn, now known as The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, is a historic landmark hotel in downtown Riverside, California. Although a composite of many architectural styles, it is generally considered the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States.

The property began as a quaint adobe boarding house called The Glenwood Cottage, built by engineer/surveyor Christopher Columbus Miller and on November 22, 1876, the Millers took their first paying guest. In February 1880, Miller's son Frank Augustus Miller purchased the hotel and land from his father. It became into a full-service hotel in the early 1900s. In 1902, Frank changed the name to the "Glenwood Mission Inn" and started building, in a variety of styles, until he died in 1935.

Miller's vision for the eclectic structure was drawn from many historical design periods, revivals, influences, and styles. Some are Spanish Gothic architecture, Mission Revival Style architecture, Moorish Revival architecture, Spanish Colonial style architecture, Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture, Renaissance Revival architecture, and Mediterranean Revival Style architecture.

During the 30-year construction period, Miller traveled the world, collecting treasures to bring back to the hotel for display.

In the early 1930s, in the rotunda wing, Miller established a "Court of the Orient" which was a collection of Asian influences and lasted after Miller's death for a few years until 1939 when this section was re-imagined as the Lea Lea Room.

The Lea Lea Room had tons of bamboo, a bar, tables, a dance floor, a band area, and all the trappings of the pre-tiki tropical nightclubs that persisted throughout the 1930s to 1950s.

One detail that is hard to miss are the Chinese Tiles with Buddhist Swastikas in their centers. Of course, this symbol goes back thousands of years before the Nazis appropriated it.

In any case, around 1985 or so, the Lea Lea Room was eventually remodeled and it was thought fitting to return the space back to its previous incarnation as the Court of the Orient.

Open at least as early as 1963.

Bora Bora was part of Restaurant Square, an area in Encino, California that accommodated three restaurants: Bora Bora, The Dolphin, and Bill Baileys.

The restaurant was owned by Bernard Gordon.

Bora Bora had extravagant Polynesian decor provided by Oceanic Arts. Perhaps too extravagant...

When the Bora Bora went bankrupt because it couldn't recoup the costs of its decor, Benson Fong of Ah Fong's simply moved in a Cantonese kitchen staff and started raking in the cash. Fong, Charlie Chan's "number one son" in the 1940s movie series, became the number one 1960s Cantonese king with five Ah Fong's restaurants located throughout L.A. County.

Today this location is home to Sadaf, a Persian Restaurant.

The Pitcairn's neon sign was designed by Heathcote in 1961 and built by California Neon Products.

The hotel was demolished in 1998 as part of the City of Anaheim's "beautification" project.

Today, as of 2021, this location appears to be a parking lot in-between the Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurant and Hampton Inn and Suites.

The Ambassador Hotel was a hotel in Los Angeles, California. Designed by architect Myron Hunt, the Ambassador Hotel formally opened to the public on January 1, 1921. It was especially well-known for its bar and nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove, with its swaying coconut palm trees made of paper mache and monkeys with electrified amber eyes.

This pre-tiki establishment and its parent hotel were more Moorish in style than Polynesian, yet set the tone for tropical pre-tiki establishments. This was Los Angeles’ premier night spot for decades; host to six Oscar ceremonies and to every United States President from Herbert Hoover to Richard Nixon. Prominent figures such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, and The Supremes were some of the many entertainers that attended and performed professionally at the Cocoanut Grove.

The hotel was the site of the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968. Due to the decline of the hotel and the surrounding area, the Ambassador Hotel was closed to guests in 1989. In 2001, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) purchased the property with the intent of constructing three new schools within the area. After subsequent litigations to preserve the hotel as a historic site, a settlement allowed the Ambassador Hotel to be demolished in 2005.

• Note (Disambiguation): Not to be confused with the Cocoanut Grove in Boston (1927-1942) which is infamous as the site of the deadliest nightclub fire in history -- taking 492 lives on November 28th, 1942.

The Glenlani Tiki Apartments were built in 1960.

They are an example of dingbats -- boxy two-story apartments supported by stilts, with open stalls below for parking. (Their name is likely to have been coined by architect Francis Ventre while he was lecturing at UCLA in the early '70s.) Thousands of the inexpensive 16-unit structures were built in the late '50s and early '60s to accommodate the huge number of people moving to Southern California. Dingbats are being demolished by the dozen to make way for multi-story complexes with underground parking, so they are doubly ephemeral when paired with a tiki theme and tiki imagery.

The Glenlani has apparently lost its sign, reading "Glenlani Tiki" and possibly the swag lamps as of 2021, but the whitewashed standing tiki on the other side of the structure is still there.

According to Redfin, the space has 11 units as of a 2020 assessment, so it was either slightly smaller than the normal dingbat or 5 of those original 16 units were incorporated into the remaining units to make them more spacious, probably now considered as condo conversions.

The Polynesia was built in Canoga Park in 1962 by Mr. Max Resnick, a Southern California apartment builder.

The property measures 25,840 square feet on a total lot size of 29,992 square feet with 27 units with a total of 49 Beds and 28 Baths.

Unlike most tiki apartment complexes, The Polynesia did not have an A-frame at the entrance. Instead, it had an interesting arrangement of large beams decorated with exotic patterns to provide an entrance canopy.

The Polynesia still stands and the mural on the front of the building remains.

However, the decorated canopy beams have long since been removed, about the time of the Northridge Earthquake (1994 or so). Beams on the other side of the building give some idea of what was there.

The Kon-Tiki opened in early November 2017 in Oakland, California, in a space that had previously held Longitude.

Owned by Christ Aivaliotis and Matthew Reagan.

The Kon-Tiki was born out of Christ’s long standing desire to stop commuting to San Francisco, but still wear a Hawaiian shirt to work every day.

December 22nd, 2024 was the last day of operation.

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.

Established in 2016, High Roller Tiki Lounge was a tiki bar within Sort This Out Cellars' tasting room in downtown Solvang, California. All of the drinks served were variations on tropical drinks, using wine as the base instead of rum or other hard liquor. The space was thoroughly decorated with lauhala and tiki tchotchkes, and souvenir mugs were available.

Solvang was founded by a group of Danes who traveled west to establish a Danish community far from Midwestern winters. The city is home to a number of bakeries, restaurants, and merchants offering a taste of Denmark in California. The architecture of many of the façades and buildings reflects traditional Danish style. Additionally, since Solvang is in the heart of wine country, you can easily visit up to 20 different wine tasting rooms within walking distance of Sort This Out Cellars, so remember to pace yourself!

*NOTE: During July of 2020, High Roller re-located from 1636 Copenhagen Drive to 433 Alisal Rd. The new space features a large built-out performance area for live music - Club 433 - just off the patio and feet from the main bar.

This was the same historic restaurant that stood for many decades under the legendary name of Sam's Seafood. It briefly became Kona, and for several years, starting in 2009, was Don the Beachcomber. This restaurant had no connection to the historic Don the Beachcomber chain; the trademark on the name had lapsed and had been purchased for new business ventures. The operation contained many nods and tributes to the original Don the Beachcomber.

The owners hoped to honor the name by bringing back traditional Don the Beachcomber cocktails. The decor remained intact, and was augmented with more work by Bamboo Ben. Notably, the entrance was redecorated in tribute to the entrance to the original Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood.

The most densely tikified area was the Dagger Bar, which was dark and filled with carved posts and pufferfish lights. The main dining room was more bright and airy, and had a large tiki watching over diners. The back of the restaurant was the deluxe "Hidden Village," available for special occasions, with a stage area, raised huts and second bar.

The owners of the restaurant did not own the lot of land it sat on, and periodically over the last decade or so prior to its close, there were threats of the restaurant being bulldozed to make room for a new condominium development. The threat seemed to rise and fall with the economy, and news came in June 2015 that the owners of the lot were asking for it to be rezoned for high-density occupation.

As of April 15th, 2018, Don's was closed down. Much of the interior decor was removed and put in storage. Part of the building was rented out to a restaurant named The Himalayan Grill as a temporary lease until they could find a permanent brick-and-mortar location. Delia Wu Snyder publicly stated she was looking for a new location for Don's to re-open.

*NOTE: According to the Tampa Bay Business Journal as of Aug 19, 2022, a Tampa-based hospitality company has acquired the intellectual property of an iconic California restaurant brand. Marc Brown, president of 23 Restaurant Services, told the Tampa Bay Business Journal that the company has finalized a deal to purchase the Don the Beachcomber brand from Delia Snyder, who had owned it since 2003. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. 23 Restaurant Services is the parent company of Ford’s Garage, Tiki Docks and Yeoman’s Cask and Lion. Some aspects of the Don the Beachcomber brand will be incorporated into Tiki Docks locations, and 23 Restaurant Services is also looking for stand-alone sites for the concept, Brown said.

The Don the Beachcomber in Madeira Beach, FL opened in February of 2024, the first of many planned by 23 Restaurant Services in the re-booting of the franchise.