Results tagged “tongaroom”

Writing in the Chron, John King examines the current state of the Tonga Room preservation debate, in which preservation architect Chris VerPlanck is preparing a nomination package for saving the Fairmont hotel's pseudo-Polynesian paradise as a historic interior. "My preservation ethos gears me toward pop kitsch and industrial vernacular," says VerPlank, whose firm Kelley & VerPlanck is working on a 21-page report (link via Grub Street SF) to be filed with the Historic Preservation Commission. Unlike New York City, where places like Philip Johnson's Four Seasons Restaurant have been declared landmark interiors, San Francisco's preservation board doesn't yet have a protocol for preserving interiors -- only buildings, sites and landscape features. VerPlanck argues that the Tonga Room "represents a highly evolved and rare example of the so-called 'High Tiki' style," but King isn't buying it, playing devil's advocate and asking whether we should be saving anything that anyone claims a kitschy attachment to.

Since you've heard that the irreplaceable Tonga Room is in danger of being made into condos(!!!), and the WonderCon convention is in town, what happens when the two are combined?

Tiki bar crawl. With comic book happy folks.

That's right! And the guest of honor this year is the Bay Area-esque Darick Robertson, artist behind the slaveringly brilliant Transmetropolitan series (with Uncle Internet Jesus Warren Ellis). Robertson is currently working on superhero deconstruction/destruction The Boys with the maniacal Garth Ennis, the book that's aimed to "out-Preacher [the] Preacher [comics]." To try to out-do one of Ennis's previous high points is some Serious Business. Throughout his work, Mr. Robertson is a man of admirable, gleeful skill.

While the news is a few weeks old, it stings fresh as this morning's rain. See, word has it that the new plan to turn part of Nob Hill's Fairmont Hotel (which, oh noes, is a CHAIN!) into condominiums will mean an end to its famed Tonga Room. Ack, is right. Plans call for deconstructing the tower and replacing its rooms with as many as 160 condos. (.pdf warning) And said plans do not include keeping the best place in the city to drink rum while watching a band perform KOIT classics in the middle of a pool. Does this mean the Tonga Room will go the way of the 711 Club and 177 Townsend (Club Universe)? Probably. But as Curbed points out seven tiki lounges will still remain in San Francisco.

Unthirsty breaks down the top-ten San Francisco happy hours for stopping the shakes. Although we have to disagree with the number-one spot going to the thematic, fun, yet sometimes overpriced Tonga Room -- that, and the staff gets really mad when we stumble out through the hotel -- the other spots are spot-on.

We are big fans of drinks that come with their own props – little plastic monkeys swinging off the rim, entire servings of fruit contained on one tiny sword, paper umbrellas. We still think fondly of the many times we walked out of the Caribbean Zone with a purse full of little cocktail tchotckes. We are thrilled that the Tonga Room is still going strong. However, we are not big fans of negotiating BART after having indulged our affinity for drinks that come with their own props. What is an East Bay resident to do when seized with the urge to drink something out of a big hurricane glass, then chew on a few rum-soaked pineapple chunks?

A reader of SFist Answers writes in anonymously:

Hanging on a wall of the brand new Trader Vic's near Civic Center is a copy of the restaurant's very first menu, circa 1930's Oakland. Back in the day, prices for the vaguely Polynesian cuisine hovered between 50 cents and two bucks, and as we waited to be seated we watched a tall blonde woman in a black trench coat study the old menu. Eventually, she turned to her companion and exclaimed, "I can't believe how cheap this place is!"

if you have $5000 to blow, John Kerry is having a fundraising lunch in the City.