Tacky tiki

[randy_byers]

It appears that a Trader Vic's is opening in Bellevue in March. (Warning: the linked story is a nauseating puff piece that made me want to stab my eyes out with little cocktail umbrellas.) I'm kind of surprised to hear that Trader Vic's still exists, since it vanished from both Seattle and Portland over a decade ago, and I always figured that meant the company was on the rocks. Is there still one in San Francisco? Isn't that where athenais and others (alces2?) used to hang out in legendary days of yore? There was some tiki place that I remember going to with a bunch of fans in 1987. It had a lagoon in it that would occasionally have a rainstorm over it. That was some pretty high class tiki, if that's not an ironic oxymoron. It was probably someplace totally hipper than Trader Vic's, which was, after all, your father's tiki.

The re-advent of Trader Vic's locally may require a fannish expedition. That's probably the only way I'll get motivated to travel to that far away land beyond the lake. Mmm, rum drinks the size of your head. Who wants to be the designated driver? Hm, perhaps I'll have to look into bus routes ...

Comments

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're going to open a super-duper Trader Vic's, four stories tall with an atrium inside and a four-storey volcanic-rock waterfall (and water slide) in it. Then again, probably not.

The newspaper article indicates that there are still Trader Vic's in London, Taipei, and Bangkok.