Kelbo's

In the ever shrinking world of Tiki bars Kelbo's was ranked among the best. While it didn't feature any truly original drinks and the food was sub-par the atmosphere was spot on.

The interior was the creation of Eli Hedley. "One of the weirdest businesses in California, where weird businesses are a perfectly normal thing, is run by a 42-year-old ex-grocer ... who makes a living out of things the Pacific Ocean throws back," began a story in Life magazine in January 1946. As his beachcombing decor found favor on Hollywood sets and in the homes of stars, celebrities often dropped by the San Pedro home. "They'd come down there and disappear from Hollywood," Bassham says of the stories he's heard from his mother and three aunts. "The way he was, he'd pull a copa de oro flower off the vine, fill it with champagne and say, 'Here, drink this.' " Actor Raymond Burr was a close friend, who at one point optioned daughter Marilyn Hedley's book, "How Daddy Became a Beachcomber." The business grew, and by the 1950s, Hedley was in demand as a tropical decorator. He worked on tiki-themed Los Angeles nightspots, such as Don the Beachcomber and Kelbo's. The hostess area of Kelbo's featured what could only be described as a glowing Lucite wall filled with crap. Matchbooks, forks, knives, starfish, you name it encased in a glowing wall. A monolith to be discovered by some future civilization lies in a landfill somewhere. The ceilings were draped in fishing nets that held a virtual museum of sea bounty. Yes, Fugu were included. The preserved blowfish with a solitary Christmas light in the belly. The Pico location had a dance hall called the Coco-Bowl. It was a great room, dark, with palm trees and tiki's and a bandstand at the far end. For a while, Kelbo's had Francis Ford Coppola as a dishwasher until he was fired. His mind seemed to be elsewhere.

Kelbo's was the creation of Thomas KELley and Jack BOuck. They opened two locations in Southern California. Kelbo's-Fairfax. 101 north Fairfax Avenue across the street from CBS Television City. (Home of the Twilight Zone series) That location featured an outdoor garden and wishing well. The wells first coin was dropped by Lucille Ball with Desi standing at her side.

The other location was Kelbo's-Pico. 11434 West Pico Boulavard. That location closed almost 20 years ago and is now the home of FANTASY ISLAND Gentleman's club. Nothing remains of the spectacular interior.

They Always Come Back:
Kelbo's sadly will not be resurrected. I wish there was better news. In honor of Kelbo's, They Always Come Back has created some products based on the Kelbo's cocktail napkin logo. You can find them here. (Along with some other goodies.)
If you would like a close approximation of what Kelbo's was like visit BAHOOKA in the city of Rosemead California. The creator of Bahooka learned the Tiki Restaurant business while working at Kelbo's for ten years. Bahooka opened in 1967. It is more nautical than tiki but the spirit of Kelbo' lingers there.
R.I.P. Kelbo's

Love's

Love's was family friendly chain of restaurants that featured ribs. It was popular in the early to mid-seventies. There were many locations throughout southern California. Love's was famous for their special BBQ sauce. The Hollywood Blvd. location, just a stones throw from Fredrick's of Hollywood, was popular into the mid-Eighties until it became a hang out for drug dealers.The Woodland Hills location was popular despite the fact it was tucked away in a parking lot behind RB Furniture. Love's big Television debut was in the 1979 T.V. movie "Like Normal People" which starred Shawn Cassidy as a mentally challenged man who worked at Love's Pico Blvd. location. A very convenient location as it was across the street from 20th Century Fox. All Love's restaurants featured the same dark wood interior and "Like Normal People" showcases that interior well. Stand-alone Love's locations all features the same unique architecture similar to Pizza Hut's 1980's design. Around that time the parent company of Love's, Butterfield, decided that the dark interior was a drawback. The trend at the time, was lighter meals in an open well lit atmosphere. Far from the dim dark rooms filled with the smell of Barbecue. The chain was sold to Butterfield in 1983 and they simply screwed with it. Trying to reformulate and reinvent the rib house was a losing proposition. Love's, as a chain, closed in the late 1980's. If anyone has any information about the history of this chain please let me know.

They Always Come Back:
The only listed franchised location left on the planet is, get this, WAY OVER HERE.
Love's BBQ sauce is still available here.

Trader Vic's

Victor J. "Trader Vic" Bergeron packed more excitement, enjoyment and exotica into his 82 years than any other man.
It all started when Victor Jules Bergeron was a waiter at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel (home of the Tonga Room) and owned a grocery store on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland. His son - Victor, (Jr.) - grew up loving the food business, living with the family in an apartment above the store and helping out downstairs. A childhood accident cost him a leg, but left him with a penchant for telling colorful stories.

In 1932, with a nest egg of $700 and carpentry help from his wife's brothers - plus his mother's pot-bellied stove and oven - the ebullient Victor built a cozy pub across the street from the store and called it Hinky Dink's. His pungent vocabulary and ribald air made him a popular host, as did his potent tropical cocktail concoctions and delicious Americanized adaptations of Polynesian food.


Soon one of the most popular watering holes in Northern California's Bay Area, the place attracted sophisticated urbanites like writers Herb Caen and Lucius Beebe. By 1936, when Caen wittily wrote that the "best restaurant in San Francisco is in Oakland," Vic had become "The Trader" and Hinky Dink's had become "Trader Vic's," complete with a showpiece Chinese oven. Its South Pacific theme "intrigues everyone. You think of beaches and moonlight and pretty girls. It is complete escape," Vic said at the time. Among Trader Vic's more tantalizing legacies is the original Mai Tai, the bracingly refreshing rum cocktail he created at the restaurant in 1944 and introduced to the Hawaiian islands in the 1950s. Tahitian for "the very best," Mai Tai became the slogan for his entire operation.

In creating his new cocktail, Trader Vic employed what was becoming the ever-present hallmark of all his food and beverage recipes: a light touch, meant to enhance but never disguise nor overpower the fine original taste of his main ingredients. All of his recipes reflect the man's own personality: distinctive, lighthearted and memorable.

By 1946, the world had beaten a path to Vic's door, prompting Lucius Beebe to write in an introduction to "Trader Vic's Book of Food and Drink" published by Doubleday that year: "Trader Vic's is ... more than an Oakland institution. Its influence is as wide as the Pacific and as deep as a Myrtle Bank punch. Vic's trading post is long on atmosphere, and it is possible for the ambitious patron with a talent for chaos to get into more trouble with obsolete anchors, coiled hausers of boa-constrictor dimensions, fish nets, stuffed sharks... Hawaiian ceremonial costumes, tribal drums, boathooks and small bore cannon than the waiters can drag him out of in a week."

The Trader eventually opened 25 Polynesian-style restaurants around the world, and several Señor Pico Mexican restaurants. His son, Lynn Bergeron, eventually took over the restaurant operation and remains Chairman Emeritus of Trader Vic's Restaurant Company.

The Trader's eldest daughter, Jeanne B. Hittell, is retired, having served for many years on the Board of Directors and as Secretary/Treasurer of the Trader's companies. Daughter Yvonne E. Seely, is also retired after decades of dedication to charity work on behalf of Trader Vic's.

Sadly the Bay Area Trader Vic's closed last week. The Beverly Hills location closed last year. Trader Vic's is on its way to becoming just another memory.

They Always Come Back:
Several incarnations of the Trader Vic's Mai Tai formula can be found here.

The Trader Vic's Mai Tai mix is no longer being sold at Von's grocery stores. The entire Safeway chain is affected as they claim it has been discontinued, which is bad news indeed. As of today the mix can be found here.

Tick Tock Tea Room

Founder of the Tick Tock Tea Room, Arthur was a native of Norway and he first arrived in California in 1930. With a scant initial outlay of $500, he bought an old house and established the restaurant in 1931. An old clock from his residence provided some initial decoration which later became the theme of the restaurant. The restaurant had a tradition of closing for two weeks each year to give not only the owners but the entire staff a vacation. The restaurant was also renown for its service, with each waiter or waitress having only three tables to look after. Famous for their Sticky Orange Rolls. The Hollywood branch at 1716 N. Cahuenga had an early American design.
Other addresses were 301 N. New Hampshire and Wilcox at Yucca (pre-dates the Cahuenga Restaurant) (also apparently called the Town House Tea Room for a while). Also a branch at 10123 Riverside Dr. in the San Fernando Valley.



Arthur Johnson died at age 84 in 1980.
The Tick Tock remained open as a family owned tea room until the late 80's and then quietly closed their doors.

They Always Come back:
No Arthur is not a zombie.

The famed secret recipie to Tick Tock's famous Orange Sticky Buns and other Hollywood staples can be found in handy book form located here.