Hawaii Kai was the grand dame of New York Polynesian restaurants. The location, over the historic Winter Garden Theatre, already had a place in Polynesian Pop history: it was the location of Monte Proser's Beachcomber, a Don the Beachcomber rip-off, in the early '40s.

The dramatic space opened initially as a partnership between Monte Proser and Joe Kipness as Lanai in 1961, but by November of 1962 it had morphed into Hawaii Kai with Joe Kipness now partnered with Art Schindler, who had owned the nearby Luau 400.

The dramatic interiors were created by Frederick Fox, a scenic designer for Broadway productions. The entry was at street level, and had lush greenery, waterfalls and capuchin monkeys. After receiving a lei greeting, visitors ascended a rattan staircase to the upper level, with three rooms:

The Okole Maluna Bar (Bottoms Up Bar) had a diorama of Diamond Head at Waikiki that constantly shifted from daytime to nighttime.

Adjacent to the bar was The Lounge of the Seven Pleasures -- this room had entertainment nightly, playing until 3 a.m.

The main dining room was where the nightly luau and Polynesian revue was held, variably called Hula Wei, Place of Meeting, or The Island Huts of Oahu. The space was large, with a stage, and thatch-covered booth "huts" along the edge of the room.

Hawaii Kai had a flair for flowery naming: beyond the colorful names for the rooms and of course the drinks, they were always coming up with new exotic-sounding titles for special giveaway items. The competition for tourist dollars was likely steep in Times Square, and in order to keep up there was a steady stream of creative bonus items one could acquire: A tiki teapot set titled "Ipo Aloha Lovers Tea Set", a skull mug titled "Goddess of Love", even a simple standard bucket mug became a "Royal Ali'i Goblet". Tiki lighters, lanterns, salt and pepper shakers, and of course good old tiki mugs: they couldn't give them away fast enough. Today the items are heavily collected, and often can be found still in the box they were sent home in.

Hawaii Kai's popularity waned, but it held on through the 1980s, and through the damage of a fire. It made appearances in a couple of Hollywood films (most famously a scene from Goodfellas takes place here). Hawaii Kai finally closed sometime during or shortly after 1989.

*NOTE: Cocktail menus below show that earlier drinkware included Spurlin/Beauce designed bowls and unmarked glassware but they later converted to Otagiri designed ceramic ware and marked glassware.

The Mainlander restaurant was opened on July 3, 1962 at the intersection of Bonhomme and Hanley roads in Clayton, Mo (which borders the west side of St. Louis). The restaurant's primary owner was Dale McGowan. McGowan lived in Webster Groves and had formerly lived in Tahiti.

The Mainlander's dining room featured grass shacks, a tiki fountain, bamboo covered walls and many Polynesian artifacts. Outside in front was another fountain and a white sand beach. The tiki fountain, designed by William Westenhaver and sold through his Witco company, was used as The Mainlander's signature tiki, appearing on its advertising, matchbooks and in the form of its souvenir mugs.

In its lower level, a waterfall of lava rock decorated the Mainlander's Huki Lau bar and lounge.

On November 18, 1971, a shooting took place in The Mainlander's lower level bar, with two customers killed and a waiter injured.

Shortly thereafter, Dale McGowan sold his restaurant to John Bristow.

Bristow ran the restaurant for six years until the Mainlander closed in early 1977.

Former owner Dale McGowan went on to become a broker developing real estate on the island of Maui. He passed away at the age of 84 in 2011.

Afterwards, The Mainlander became a non-Polynesian restaurant called Lautrec's. There was a fire in the building in 1978, and an office building is now in the location.

In 1961, David Cohn, of Seattle, built a new South Seas-themed restaurant on Pier 51 in Seattle. He called it The Polynesia. The roofline resembled the long houses of the South Pacific islands. A few years later, he constructed an identical restaurant above the Spokane Falls and opened Spokane’s own Polynesia in 1965.

The open-air deck, with views of the Spokane River, the middle falls and the Washington Water Power Upper Falls generating plant, was just a few feet from the Great Northern railroad trestle that brought trains to the GN depot. Diners agreed the roar and rumble of the passing trains seemed to enhance the dining experience, rather than detract from it.

But the Polynesia wasn’t the hit Cohn thought it would be. A year after opening, he was forced to sell it off.

Today, and since 2004, the building is a seafood and steak restaurant called Anthony’s.

Built in 1967.

The Aku Tiki Lounge was located in the Villager Motel and was a thriving bar in the 60s and 70s.

The Villager Motel was closed in 2008 after more than 40 years of business and was demolished in 2009.

Built in 1968.

This 30-room motel features an A-frame at the front and a sign with spears, although it is now much shorter than the original sign.

There used to be many more tikis around the grounds, but it appears a previous owner in the 1990s cleared out many of the weathered original tikis and tried to remodel things for a more Japanese aesthetic.

Despite this, there are still quite a few Witco tiki lamps in many of the rooms as can be seen in their promotional materials.

*Not to be confused with the Tiki Village Supper Club that once existed in Prince George.

Opened November 12th, 1964 by Bill Blinko and Vic Booth.

It was Prince George's first downtown supper club.

This was a well-known live music venue.

The club went bankrupt and closed its doors on December 5th, 1966.

The Samoan Village Motor Hotel opened in 1964, and also featured a restaurant and bar. It was designed by architect Peter Lendrum, and had three large rounded "hut" structures with dramatic pointed rooftops; one was the tiki-supported porte cochere, the largest was the restaurant. The hotel itself was a two-story horseshoe shape with a pool area and tikis in the courtyard.

It was a competitor with the nearby Kon-Tiki Hotel.

As of 1993, the site was still standing but no longer in operation, and Lendrum's long-neglected tiki huts looked disturbingly like a series of nuclear reactors.

"That Polynesian-village frou-frou stuff was big back in the early Sixties," said Lendrum in an interview with the Phoenix New Times. "Why was it so popular? I have no idea."

The Samoan Village was demolished not long after.

Tur Mai Kai opened June 27th, 1969. The building had a wide, dramatic A-frame shape, and the interior was elaborately fitted with lots of tiki poles, carved panels and posts, bamboo, and beachcomber lamps.

Their glassware and other advertising list this address as being in Kalamazoo, but by current (and perhaps even by the standards of the day) it is actually in Portage, just past the southern border of Kalamazoo.

The location later became Peking Palace in 1979, and the building was torn down in the fall of 2004. The site is now home to a Red Robin and a Carrabba's Italian Grill.

In 1952, Jack Sutton opened Dutton's Jungle Gardens, which sprawled across 7-acres at the intersection of Orangethorpe and Raymond Avenues.

The property was covered with more than 500 palm trees and crawled with assorted megafauna: an alligator, bear, lion, three elephants, orangutans and more. One of the biggest attractions was Jerry, a chimpanzee who was toilet trained and could dress himself and brush his own teeth. Admission to the jungle was free and large paths led people through the dense canopy where they could get close to the animals, which inevitably caused liability issues.

Dutton offset the cost of running the animal attraction with this swanky Polynesian joint known as the Palms Restaurant. Serving exotic gourmet food, it hosted parties of up to 1,000 people. Menus housed in the Anaheim library show Lobster dinners were served for $3.50; Hawaiian dinners such as Barbecued Pork and Opae Teriyaki were served for around $5 a plate. Guests included such glitterati as actor Dale Robertson (Dynasty) as well as Catwoman Eartha Kitt. The brochure below shows that the bar was known as the "Lantern Bar" and featured a ton of swag lamps! There was also a "Terrace Room" and a "Gold Room".

But ultimately the operation was too much for Dutton to handle. In 1974 thieves raided the jungle making off with two flamingos, two silver pheasants, a Ghigi Golden pheasant and other birds totaling a loss of $1,200. In 1976 police responded to reports of an unruly party of approximately 700 guests at the Palms. According to the Santa Ana Register a “free-for-all” broke out with people launching rocks and bottles at police forcing cops to use mace and batons to break up the throng. Three people were arrested for assault on a police officer and one lawman was hospitalized.

On May 17, 1976 the Palms closed. It stood vacant for two years and succumbed to a suspicious electrical fire in 1978.

The Palms restaurant was right next door to the Akua Motor Hotel, now known as the Akua Motor Inn.

The Islands was a Polynesian restaurant just south of Camelback Road in Phoenix, operating from July 4th, 1958 through at least the '70s. It had four rooms: the Tapa Bar, the Tiki Room, the Cannibal Room, and the Waterfall Room, which was available for private events when it wasn't used for live music and dancing,

The building had two swooping A-frames, facing in opposite directions, covered in thatch, and two cone-shaped thatched huts to the left of the main building. The exterior sides of the restaurant were decorated with oversized, graphic tapa-style designs. The restaurant was fronted by two large rootball tikis that were sometimes used as logos for the restaurant.

From 1977 onward, it was known as Tommy Wong's Island Restaurant after being purchased by Wong, who had worked at the Chicago Don the Beachcomber and at the Aku Aku in Las Vegas before becoming a successful restaurateur in his own right. Tommy Wong also had an Island Restaurant (or "Islands Restaurant" depending on the advertisement) in Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado.

Some time in the '80s, The Islands/Island Restaurant building in Phoenix was razed. The rest of the chain in Colorado also went under in the 80s.

This Kona Kai was part of a chain of restaurants that included locations in Chicago and Philadelphia. This location was at the Plaza Inn (later the Hilton Plaza Inn), just a block from The Castaways.

There was also a second Kona Kai location at the Plaza Inn International by the airport that opened in June 1975 -- now the Hilton Kansas City Airport Hotel.

Both Kansas City locations closed in the 80s and both locations featured "signature" 8-foot tall tikis carved by Oceanic Arts in Whittier, California (the tiki at this location has somewhat wider nostrils -- a shorthand to tell them apart -- see last photo below). These tikis now reside in a private collection.

Most recently, this location had been the Holiday Inn Country Club Plaza Hotel, but it was bought and scheduled for demolition in late 2020.