Fountain at the Islands Restaurant in the Hanalei Hotel, San Diego
Joel Reis reports on his blog that the Island Restaurant at the Hanalei Hotel in San Diego closed yesterday for some apparently drastic renovations. The Islands Restaurant has been at the Hanalei since it opened in 1966. The hotel was once a beautiful example of midcentury Polynesian Pop architecture and design, but sadly has been updated over the years to a bland cookie-cutter chain hotel (currently owned by Red Lion). The hotel has managed to keep a few wonderful pieces through these renovations, including several items that came out of the historic Luau in Beverly Hills when it closed.
Fountain at the Islands Restaurant
in the Hanalei Hotel, San Diego
While the Islands Restaurant has not emerged unscathed from these renovations, it has still retained enough of its decor to be a very worthwhile stop for the travelling tikiphile; indeed, the hotel was host to the annual Tiki Oasis event last year, and is scheduled to host the event again in 2007. It is one of the very few restaurants remaining in the world that give the feeling of stepping into the golden era of Tiki. It’s not yet clear what this latest renovation has in store for the Islands, but it sounds devastating.
From Joel Reis’ blog:
The Hanalei is undergoing extensive remodel in the next 6 months and the first stage is the remodel of the hotel’s signature restaurant. This waterfall is one of the victims of the remodel. It has been there for decades along with priceless tiki artifacts as well as Monkeypod tables (which is a now endangered wood native to the South Pacific). The tables are supposed to return, since they truly are priceless at this point, but the fate of many of the artifacts is in question. Most are supposed to return, maybe not to the restaurant, but around the property. But there has been rumour that they may not return and simply be liquidated at bulk to some collector.
The waterfalls mentioned in his blog are at the entrance to the restaurant, and can be seen in the pictures above, taken in 2004. They are dramatic and beautiful, and I simply cannot fathom why the hotel would want to remove them. This news is just crushing, and surprising, considering that the hotel has become host to one of the largest annual events for tikiphiles, drawing hundreds of people. A very strange and disconcerting development.
I’ve heard nothing about this beyond this one blog post, so I wouldn’t say it’s verified. Stay tuned for information as I learn more.
- Goodbye Islands as I Once Knew You [...Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax... of Cabbages and Kings...]
- The Islands Restaurant, San Diego [Critiki]
- Red Lion Hanalei Hotel, San Diego [Critiki]
- San Diego: Tiki Oasis 2007 [Humu Kon Tiki]
November 7th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
[...] The past day has brought a series of confirmations and more information about the remodeling of the Islands Restaurant and Hanalei Hotel in San Diego. Much of the information comes from an email from Otto von Stroheim’s Tiki News mailing list. Otto is the organizer of the Tiki Oasis event that will be at the Hanalei Hotel in August 2007. Otto was able to speak to the upper management of the hotel directly, so this information should be pretty solid. Much of the decisions around these changes, or the direction to make changes, came from the Red Lion corporate office. [...]