page_title: Tiki culture
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Tiki culture / Origin
caption_attribution_description: English: Repository: California Historical Society Digital object ID: CHS2014.1476 [a] Call number: MENU COL Collection: California menu collection Date: 1943 Preferred citation: Menu, Don the Beachcomber, Hollywood [cover], California menu collection, courtesy, California Historical Society, CHS2014.1476 [a].jpg. Online finding aid: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8qn68hw
context_page_description: Tiki culture is a motif of exotically decorated bars and restaurants catering to an escapist longing for travel to tropical regions of the South Pacific. Featuring mock tiki carvings and complex, alluringly named alcoholic drinks, it eventually influenced residential recreation.
  Starting in California in the 1930s and then spreading around the world, it was inspired by the sentimental appeal of an idealized South Pacific, particularly Hawaii, Polynesia and Oceania, as viewed through the experiences of those who had visited such areas and a Hollywood lens focused on beautiful scenery, forbidden love and the potential for danger. Over time it selectively incorporated more cultural elements of other regions that affected Polynesia, such as Southeast Asia.
  Tiki culture changed over time, influenced by World War II and the firsthand exposure hundreds of thousands of American servicemen gained during that conflict. In time its appeal wore off and both the culture and the hospitality industry theme all but died off.
  The early decades of the 21st century have seen a small renaissance of interest in tiki culture, including a limited commercial revival.
context_section_description: What would eventually come to be known as Tiki culture in the United States largely began on the heel end of prohibition in 1933 with the opening of Don's Beachcomber, a Polynesian-themed bar and restaurant in Hollywood, California.  The proprietor was Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, a young man from Texas and New Orleans who had done some rum-running with his father and claimed to have sailed throughout much of the Pacific Ocean. The restaurant's name was later changed to Don the Beachcomber, and Ernest legally changed his name to Donn Beach. His restaurant featured Cantonese cuisine and exotic rum cocktails and punch drinks, with a decor of flaming torches, rattan furniture, flower leis, and brightly colored fabrics that looked like imagery out of the popular movies that were helping to fuel the desires of the average American to travel the Pacific.
  In 1936, a restaurant owner from Oakland, California, Victor Bergeron, ate at the Don the Beachcomber restaurant. As stated in Bergeron's biography: "We went to a place called the South Seas...and even visited Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood.  In fact, I even bought some stuff from Don the Beachcomber. When I got back to Oakland I told my wife what I had seen, we agreed to change the name of our restaurant and our decor." The renamed restaurant, as well as his new nickname, became Trader Vic's. Bergeron adopted the new persona in a manner to imitate Beach's theatrics and further perpetuate the illusions of Hollywood, telling people that the wooden leg he had lost to tuberculosis had in fact been the result of being attacked by a shark.
  Other restaurants such as Clifton's Cafeteria also had begun introducing grand decorations based on non-traditional and "kitschy" themes. It was heavily remodeled in 1939 to become Clifton's South Seas. The exterior and interior were decorated with 12 waterfalls, volcanic rock, and tropical foliage. Tiki historian Sven Kirsten claims that Clifton's even featured a "sherbert-gushing volcano".
  The decor of both the inside and the outside of the restaurants was often painstakingly created with decorations from around the world. Joseph Stephen Crane, the owner of the later The Luau restaurant began his menu with a list of where all of his building materials came from. The list included decorations not just from Hawaii but from virtually all areas of Oceania, and also including furniture from Hong Kong and "man eating clam shells" from the Indian Ocean.
  Early tiki restaurants, although not called as such at the time, attempted to walk a fine line between the reality and myth of what they were creating, acknowledging much of it was Hollywood hocus-pocus but also trying to create an atmosphere of authenticity. Crane's later restaurant menus stated: "You have just passed the gangplank into another world – into a segment of Paradise – or such is the illusion we of THE LUAU hope to create. And truly it is more than an illusion for there is authenticity in the adventure you are about to experience...Both food and drink are prepared under the matchless guidance of the one and only Dr. Foo Fong...Our drink specialties, Island Symphonies of rare and distinguished rums, irresistibly claim your fullest respect which is best shown by drinking slowly and reverently".
  Movies leading up to this period included White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), The Love Trader (1928), and Bird of Paradise (1932). Beach frequently interacted with movie stars, inviting them to his home for luau-like dinners and becoming friends with actors such as Clark Gable.
  Hei Tiki was released in 1935, with a NY Times review describing the plot as being about "a chieftain's daughter who is declared tabu and destined to be the bride of the war god". It attributed the title to mean "love charm", in reference to Hei-tiki pendants sometimes associated with fertility. Waikiki Wedding, starring Bing Crosby and Martha Raye was released in 1937 with the popular song Blue Hawaii, as was Her Jungle Love in 1938, starring Dorothy Lamour.
  During a time when overseas civilian air travel was still unc
caption: Don the Beachcomber restaurant menu cover
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