Don the Beachcomber
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Donn Beach (born Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt February 22, 1907 - June 7, 1989) is the acknowledged founding father of tiki restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. The many so-called "Polynesian" restaurants and watering holes that enjoyed great popularity are directly descended from what he created. After years of being called Don the Beachcomber because of his original bar/restaurant, Gantt legally changed his name to "Donn Beach".
A former bootlegger, the New Orleans native moved to Hollywood in the 1930s. Gantt opened a bar called "Don's Beachcomber" in 1933 on McFadden Place, and then, across the street, the first Don the Beachcomber restaurant. He mixed potent rum cocktails in his tropically decorated bar. This was such an escape from everyday life, it quickly gained popularity. At "Don the Beachcomber", customers ate what seemed like wonderfully exotic cuisines, but, in actuality, were mostly standard Cantonese dishes served with flair. The first "pupu platter" was probably served there. His Zombie cocktail (a rum drink) was served at the 1939 New York World's Fair. He also was known for creating "Tahitian Rum Punch".
Tiki restaurants enjoyed a tremendous burst of fad popularity in the 1940s and 50s and there were several Don the Beachcomber restaurants across the country. Victor J. Bergeron opened a competing version called Trader Vic's in the late 1930s in the San Francisco Bay Area and the two men were amicable rivals for many years. Each claimed to have created the Mai Tai, a rum and fruit-juice cocktail still popular today -- "maitai" is the Tahitian word for "good." The Trader claimed to have invented it in 1944, the Beachcomber in 1933. At the peak of Bergeron's success, there were more Trader Vic's around the world than Don the Beachcombers.
Gantt had left home in 1926 and traveled around the world on his own, scouring many of the islands of the Caribbean and the South Pacific. As the originator of Polynesian-style restaurants, he served in the U.S. Army in World War II as an operator of officer rest-and-recreation centers. He was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star while setting up rest camps for combat-weary airman of the 12th and 15th Air Forces in Capri, Nice, Cannes, the French Riviera, Venice, the Lido and Sorrento at the order of his friend, Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle.
When World War II ended, Beach settled in Waikiki, where he opened his second Polynesian Village, the first being at his home in Encino, California where he entertained his Hollywood pals. He was the originator of the International Marketplace in Honolulu, and had his office up in the limbs of the enormous banyan tree in the center of the market. He later built an elaborate houseboat, the Marama, a prototype for what he hoped would be floating housing in Hawaii but failed to get the zoning for it. He eventually shipped the houseboat to Moorea, and lived there in retirement for a number of years before a succession of hurricanes destroyed it. He died in Honolulu.