The first incarnation of Don The Beachcomber's was across from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, at the Queen's Royal Gardens.

This first Don's lasted 10 years which is how long his original lease was for.

Don the Beachcomber moved to the International Market Place, a short distance away, around 1956, and this was on a new lease of 17 acres.

It was at Don the Beachcomber’s that Martin Denny got together with vibraphonist Arthur Lyman and bassist John Kramer to play jazz. The trio got a record contract in 1955, and bongo player Augie Colon joined the group the following year. Denny played at the International Market Place Don's on a regular basis.

This version of Don's had the famous Dagger Bar with walls covered in Don's collection of daggers he had picked up during his travels.

Adjacent was also Don's tree house, which was inspired by earlier tree houses that he had on his property in Encino, California.

This one was built on an existing large banyan tree on the property. This tree, planted in the mid-1800s by Henry and Eliza McFarlane served as the anchor point from which Donn lived and worked. It most popularly served as a private dining room which could be booked for up to 2 people to enjoy. For most of the week Donn hosted Tahitian performers below the treehouse and on Sundays he hosted a Luau which became a mainstay of the International Marketplace. As the years passed, Donn’s treehouse morphed into a radio studio, playing Hawaiian music live on the air eventually becoming a private office.

Today, Donn’s treehouse no longer exists however, a tribute treehouse has been built in its place to honor the history and legacy of Donn’s presence and impact on the landscape of Waikiki.

Duke Kahanamoku's moved into the Don The Beachcomber building at the International Marketplace on September 1, 1961 and Don moved to another nearby location, although this final location was named The Colonel's Plantation Beefsteak and Coffee House. This location burned in a fire in 1966, due to outdated and faulty wiring.

So, absent the original building, it is the tribute treehouse that remains as the most prominent feature on site today.

This is a Chinese restaurant with a selection of classic tropical cocktails on the menu.

No real tiki decor to speak of, however, it has a rich history and is tiki adjacent with mugs issued by both Tiki Farm and Tiki Diablo.

From the Formosa:

"The Formosa first opened its doors in 1939: making its new debut in its 80th year. Located across from the then-Samuel Goldwyn studio, stars like Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, and Elvis Presley would pop into the legendary Formosa Cafe regularly for dining and drinks. On any given day, patrons might have seen Ava Gardner dancing past the old, red leather booths, or John Wayne nursing a late-night scotch (he was caught making scrambled eggs in our kitchen one morning, after reportedly passing out in a booth the night before).

Among the interior design restorations is the full reveal of the iconic and original red trolley car, dating back to 1904 and is confirmed to be the oldest surviving red train car in existence. Boxes of autographed celebrity photos and storage units of original memorabilia have made their way back into the Cafe.

We worked with local L.A. archivists and hospitality notables who are helping to inform the new food and cocktail menu: a retrospective of Formosa’s culinary evolution since the 1920’s. The new Formosa not only transports guests back in time to the glory days of Hollywood, but with its new menu, patrons are given another way to connect to a part of L.A.’s gastronomic history, too.

Because one of the most prominent decor themes in the Formosa is the old black and white headshots, we wanted to give the newer areas of the Formosa a part to play, too: to tell a storied history of Chinese Americans in Old Hollywood. To do this, the Formosa Cafe team collaborated with historians as well as the original family to procure all the original photos and artifacts and bring them back to their original home where they belong. With the new addition of the historic Yee Mee Loo bar area of the Formosa, we decided to tell a story about the influence of Chinese Americans in early Hollywood: from a collection of ephemera and photos, movie posters and headshots, it showcases major Chinese actors from a chronological standpoint from Hollywood’s golden age."

The movement of Chinese restaurants into suburban locations continued in 1972 when the Sing family, which had operated Sing's Polynesian Restaurant and Lounge since 1969 in the Penobscot Plaza in Bangor, Maine, decided to expand southward to Greater Portland. They opened Sing's Cantonese Polynesian American Restaurant and Lounge at 152 Main Street, Westbrook. The family lacked the management structure necessary to operate two such widely separated restaurants and closed the Westbrook location by 1976. This site soon after became Polynesian Village until its close in 1997.

Established in 1984.

"Malahini" translates to "stranger" or "newcomer" in Hawaiian. However, despite the Hawaiian name and several Hawaiian touches, this is primarily a Chinese Restaurant. It is located in a strip mall and the interior's white drop ceiling, white walls, and green glass pub shades over the bar do little to enhance the island feeling either. However, it does have some nice touches, including some vintage Orchids of Hawaii swag lamps, some tiki masks on the walls, and several frosted glass panels that show palm trees and other island images.

Their website and current menu does not include a cocktail list.

Opened in January 2020.

This is a very sparsely decorated location without the large carvings and layers that you would expect from old school locations like Trader Vics. They do have some jungle monkey and hula girl wallpapered accent walls, some rattan furniture, and a few rattan ceiling fans. However, the peach-painted exterior, poured concrete bartop, and simple white globe lights in the front windows could call to mind any of hundreds of other differently themed gastropubs around the country.

Drinks are served in appropriate glassware or in generic tiki mugs and their drink menu offers an equal distribution of classics, signature cocktails, and machine-blended slushie drinks. They also have an extensive catalogue of rums and other spirits.

Their food menu offers fried chicken sandwiches, spam, and hots dogs among other things.

By all accounts their food and drinks are on point (and although the Pickle Painkiller is questionable, the restaurant's owner is Jacob Hadjigeorgis, the man behind Upper West Side’s wildly popular southern comfort food restaurant Jacob’s Pickles, so it gets a pass). Despite the interior theming leaving a bit to be desired, it's still a very pleasant place to spend an hour or two in the city.

The Hale Kai (House by the Sea) operated during the 1960s and was located at the Brant Inn in Burlington, Ontario. John Murray Anderson was the owner and director.

The original Brant Hotel opened in 1900 and burned to the ground in 1925. It was reconstructed that same year. Anderson and his partners, Kendall and Cec Roberts, purchased the property in 1939. Anderson became sole owner in 1954, having bought out the others.

Anderson is credited with being the first to bring big bands and floor shows into Canada and specifically with getting the popular Sky Club, which extended out over Lake Ontario, built at the Inn. There was Sophie Tucker, Victor Borge, Lena Horne, Louis “Satchmo” armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Liberace. And the big American bands came through — Goodman, Les Brown and his band of renown, and Stan Kenton, who packed 1,600 people into the place.

Poor health led Anderson to sell the Inn in 1964 to a firm called the International Atlas Development and Exploration Ltd.

In 1968, the decision was made by the owners of the Inn to close the entertainment landmark following the New Year’s Eve celebration. Demolition took place in 1969.

A commemorative plaque marks where the Inn once stood, located at the western end of Spencer Smith Park close to Maple Avenue.

*Today not much is known about the Hale Kai. Focus seems to be on the 1940s and 50s which are considered the high point of the Brant Inn. So, the Hale Kai may have only been around for a very brief time in the 1960s.

Built in 1958 with 46 rooms.

Costa Mesa’s Kon Tiki Motel was the New Harbor Inn for a time up until about 2017/2018 but is now the Mesa Motel.

The Kona Kove Lounge was housed within the Stardust Bowl recreation center. It is unclear when it was built or closed, but it was open as late as April of 1970 as there are ads from that time for live music at the venue.

This bar is also mentioned in James Teitlbaum's Tiki Road Trip as part of the Stardust Bowling Alley and in Sven Kirsten's The Book of Tiki on page 198.

The Castaways Hotel opened on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip across from the Sands Hotel in 1963, became one of the casinos billionaire Howard Hughes bought in the late 1960s and survived into the 1980s, when it was demolished to make way for Steve Wynn's The Mirage in 1989.

In 1963, the casino was themed as a Polynesian Resort, with Tiki torches and palm trees surrounding the exterior. It also included Pacific Island Tiki-themed showrooms and a bar with a fish tank in which a woman swam to entertain patrons.

The following year, in 1964, the Samoa Room showcased "Playmate of 1964" with March & Adams/Dick Wells/Jay Nemeth. The Kon-Tiki Room showcased continuous entertainment.

Successive remodeling as the years went on sometimes went against theme. For instance, outside the hotel, Castaways managers bought and assembled a sixty-year-old scale replica of an East Indian Jain temple, made of elaborately carved teakwood, which they called "The Gateway to Luck".

This venue opened in August 2011 at the site of the former Po Na Na in Edinburgh. It appears to have closed after 2015 or so.

The Auld Reekie Tiki Bar opened at this same location in June 2017 (created by the owner of The Tiki Bar and Kitsch Inn) but it only lasted a year or so and was replaced by Kitty O'Shea's, an Irish pub.

Created (April 2014) in the former site of Coyote Wild in Victoria Street, this 800-capacity bar covered the ground and first floors, featured two bars, an Island Grill diner, a spacious dance floor and an upstairs tropical garden -- totaling up to 22,259 sq ft. CheekyTiki's sister company, CT Creative Ltd., did the design work and worked over the course of several weeks to make a space where guests entered through a real sunken ship to be greeted with a tropical arboretum of hanging plants, and a flock of 52 mirror ball carrying parrots over the dance floor. It was one of, if not the largest spaces they had done up to that point for the Lola Lo chain.

Closed August, 2017 and was replaced by Bar Soba (which only lasted a single year) before being converted into office space by a new design firm.

PoNaNa on the Triangle became Lola Lo in September of 2014. It is one of several in a chain of Lola Lo bar/restaurants that have opened over the years (including Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester, and Reading) but only Bristol and Reading remain as of late 2025.

From their Facebook:

"Polynesian inspired Tiki tavern on Queen’s Rd serving luscious South Pacific style cocktails. Decked out with bamboo and tropical palms; a slice of island paradise with resident DJs, student nights, cocktail masterclasses and VIP tables."