| Chin Tiki | |
|---|---|
 Chin Tiki, circa 2007 | |
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| Restaurant information | |
| Established | July 1966 [1] |
| Closed | 1980 |
| Food type | Polynesian |
| Street address | 2121 Cass Ave |
| City | Detroit, Michigan |
| State | Michigan |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 42°20′10″N83°3′21″W / 42.33611°N 83.05583°W |
Chin Tiki was a tiki-themed supper club, nightclub and banquet hall in Detroit, Michigan owned by Marvin Chin. [2] It closed in 1980 and was demolished in 2009. [3]
The Chin Tiki saw construction begin in 1965 and opened in July 1966. [1] A former engineer for Ford, Chin designed the restaurant himself, and had a hand in most of the construction. [3] Inspired by the burgeoning Tiki culture fad of the 1950s and 1960s, the first floor restaurant was ornately decorated "with towering tiki statues, waterfalls and a bamboo bridge." [3] It also featured a large black light aquarium mural. The drink menu included well known tiki drinks such as the Sharks Tooth, Head Hunter, and Fog Cutter, as well as the Chin Tiki Punch and the Chin Tiki Special, which was a communal drink meant for sharing, served in a large clam shell with long straws, and described as "a fusing of fine rums, brandy, liqueurs and fresh fruit juices crowned with a gardenia".
Chuck Thurston of the Detroit Free Press described what it was like to visit the Chin Tiki in August 1966: [1]
In order to get into Chin Tiki at 2121 Cass you have to reach into an idol's eye, a rather unnerving experience, but once inside, Detroit’s new Polynesian restaurant is softly-lit, cool and decorated to make one hear the distant boom of surf on the outer reef of the atoll. It is wise to consult one of the bare-foot waitresses extensively about the menu. But you can’t go wrong with Kau Kau (pronounced Koah Koah), which is a collection of things done with fish, pork, chicken and lobster. The Chin Tiki specializes in drinks formulated with exotic and obscure juices but you can get an excellent Martini of you are properly polite.
The second floor housed a spacious nightclub with an even larger waterfall, imitation rock walls and a rattan covered stage. [4] The Chin Tiki hosted live music and an authentic Polynesian floor show with Hawaiian dancers and fire-breathers. The restaurant was said to be frequented by such celebrities as Muhammad Ali, Barbra Streisand and Joe DiMaggio. [2]
One of Chin's early competitors was the other large Detroit area Tiki restaurant named the Mauna Loa, but it was short lived. [5] [6]
Following Detroit's economic downturn, Chin shuttered Chin Tiki in 1980, where it remained untouched for two decades and was deemed "a Tiki tomb, a time capsule," by local tiki enthusiasts. [7] [3] However, after Chin died in 2006 his family quickly sold the building to Olympia Development LLC, owned by Detroit mogul Mike Ilitch and family. The building was torn down in 2009. [3]
Marvin Chin also owned the Port O' Three Tiki restaurant in nearby Bloomfield Hills, MI. Its menu and signage used many of the same graphics as the Chin Tiki and used the same cocktail menu. The name came from his "three types of food" concept for the restaurant which he advertised for on his matchbooks: "Marvin Chin proudly presents a new concept in dining. A unique combination of sea food, Polynesian, and Japanese cuisine under one roof....", but the restaurant stayed in business for only a short period of time. [8]
Chin's is a small Cantonese restaurant in Livonia, MI that is decorated with some of the Chin Tiki's former statues. [9] [10] [11]
The Chin Tiki was later famous for being a film location for the movie 8 Mile . [12] The unique look of the building had gotten the attention of production designer Phil Messina, who had Universal Studios contact Chin to contract the use of his facility for the filming. [3] The renewed interest had fueled speculation for a short period of time that the restaurant would reopen. [13]
Tiki culture is an American-originated art, music, and entertainment movement inspired by Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures. Inspired by Oceanian art, influential cultures to Tiki culture include Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, the Caribbean Islands, and Hawaii. The name comes from Tiki, the Māori name for the first human, often represented in the form of hei-tiki, a pendant and important taonga. The hei-tiki was often appropriated by Europeans as a commercialised good luck charm, hence the name of Tiki culture. Despite spanning over 10,000 miles and including many different unrelated cultures, religions, and languages, Tiki aesthetic is considered by some to be amalgamated into one "fantasia of trans-Pacific cultures" and "colonial nostalgia". Because of this, and the simplistic view of the Pacific taken by the aesthetic, Tiki culture has often proved controversial.
The Mai Tai is a cocktail made of rum, Curaçao liqueur, orgeat syrup, and lime juice. It is one of the characteristic cocktails in Tiki culture.
The Zombie is a Tiki cocktail made of fruit juices, liqueurs, and various rums. It first appeared in late 1934, invented by Donn Beach at his Hollywood Don the Beachcomber restaurant. It was popularized on the East coast soon afterwards at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Donn Beach was an American adventurer, businessman, and World War II veteran who was the "founding father" of tiki culture. He is known for opening the first prototypical tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber, during the 1930s in Hollywood, California, which was expanded to a chain of dozens of restaurants throughout the United States. He later built the International Market Place and additional establishments in what was then the Territory of Hawaii. He married three times.
Trader Vic's is a restaurant and tiki bar chain headquartered in Emeryville, California, United States. Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. founded a chain of Polynesian-themed restaurants that bore his nickname, "Trader Vic". He was one of two people who claimed to have invented the Mai Tai. The other was his amicable competitor for many years, Donn Beach of the "Don the Beachcomber" restaurants.
A tiki mug is a large ceramic cocktail drinking vessel that originated in tiki bars and tropical-themed restaurants. The term "tiki mug" is a blanket term for the sculptural drinkware even though they vary in size and most do not contain handles. They typically depict Polynesian, mock-Polynesian, tropical, nautical, or retro themes, and as the term is used generically do not always emulate a tiki. When used to serve drinks they are frequently garnished with fruit or decorative drink umbrellas and swizzle sticks.
A tiki bar is a themed drinking establishment that serves elaborate cocktails, especially rum-based mixed drinks such as the Mai Tai and Zombie cocktails. Tiki bars are aesthetically defined by their tiki culture décor which is based upon a romanticized conception of tropical cultures, most commonly Polynesian. Some bars also incorporate general nautical themes or retro elements from the early atomic age.
A Scorpion Bowl is a communally shared alcoholic tiki drink served in a large ceramic bowl traditionally decorated with wahine or hula-girl island scenes and meant to be drunk through long straws. Bowl shapes and decorations can vary considerably. Starting off as a single-serve drink known as the Scorpion cocktail, its immense popularity as a bowl drink in tiki culture is attributed to Trader Vic.
The Mai-Kai is a Polynesian-themed restaurant and tiki bar in Oakland Park, Florida. It opened to the public on December 28, 1956, and is one of the few "Grand Polynesian Palaces of Tiki" still in operation today. In 2015 it was named the "best tiki bar in the world" by Critiki, an organization of fans of Polynesian pop culture. It is the last restaurant in existence carrying on the traditions of service and serving the original drink recipes of Don the Beachcomber, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Joseph Stephenson "Steve" Crane was an American actor and restaurateur. A Columbia Pictures actor in the early 1940s, Crane opened the Luau, a popular celebrity restaurant, in 1953 and established a successful 25-year career in the restaurant industry. In addition to his own accomplishments, Crane is often remembered as Lana Turner's twice ex-husband.
Pago Pago Lounge was a mid-twentieth century Tiki Bar named for and inspired by the capital city of Pago Pago on South Pacific Ocean island of American Samoa. Opened in 1947, it was the first Tiki themed restaurant and bar in Tucson, Arizona located in the Miracle Mile Historic District.
The diki-diki is a cocktail made with calvados, Swedish Punsch, and grapefruit juice, dating back to the 1920s where it was popular in London's higher-end American bar scene but is now more commonly served as a Tiki drink. The original recipe calls for shaking the ingredients with ice in 2:1:1 proportions, although many later variations have modified the ratio to greater emphasize the calvados as the base ingredient (4:1:1).
The doctor cocktail is a pre-prohibition era cocktail that traces in drink guides to as far back as 1917, when it appeared in Hugo R. Ensslin's Recipes for Mixed Drinks. As originally described the cocktail called simply for Swedish Punsch mixed with lime juice.
The Q.B. Cooler is a vintage tiki cocktail invented by Donn Beach that calls for a mixture of several rums, two syrups, fruit juices, and honey, mixed with club soda and dashes of Pernod, bitters, and grenadine. Another version purported to be from 1937 is slightly different and calls for varying rum proportions and ginger syrup in place of the fassionola and Pernod.
The Sumatra Kula is a vintage tiki cocktail invented by Donn Beach that calls for light rum, equal parts orange, lime and white grapefruit juices, and is sweetened with a diluted honey mix.
The cobra's fang is a vintage tiki cocktail invented by Donn Beach that calls for a mixture of rums along with fassionola and falernum syrups, the juice of orange and limes, and a dash each of bitters and grenadine. The recipe from the book Hawai'i: Tropical Rum Drinks & Cuisine By Don the Beachcomber calls for it being garnished with fresh mint and a lime wheel, although a length of spiral cut lime peel made to look like a snake is used for aesthetics in some cobra named cocktails.
Mr. Bali Hai is a tiki drink served in a special mug at the Bali Hai restaurant on Shelter Island in San Diego, California. The drink has had different recipes over the years, but a prominent version from the 1970s calls for 1 1/2 oz of dark Jamaican rum, 1 oz light Puerto Rican rum, 3/4 oz coffee flavored brandy, 1 1/2 oz unsweetened pineapple juice, 1 oz lemon juice, and 1/2 oz of sugar syrup. The mug has the same name as the drink, Mr. Bali Hai, and comes in the shape of a headhunter's head with a removable lid.
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