Kahiki Supper Club

At a glance

The Grass Shack and The Top

The Kahiki began with two Columbus restaurateurs, Bill Sapp and Lee Henry. By the late 1950s they were running The Top, a steakhouse near Bexley, and a Polynesian-themed bar nearby called the Grass Shack, which drew World War II veterans. When the Grass Shack was destroyed by fire, the partners decided to keep the Polynesian theme and, as the 1997 National Register nomination puts it, to build a supper club rather than simply replace the bar.

Doug Motz, a past president of the Columbus Historical Society, wrote in Columbus Underground that the pair had been operating The Top for three years when, in 1957, they began traveling the country looking for ideas for a second supper club and noticed that every Polynesian restaurant they visited seemed to be doing well. The National Register nomination records that from 1957 they traveled through the South Pacific with their interior designer, Coburn Morgan, gathering ideas and artifacts, and visited Polynesian restaurants across the United States with the architects.

The fashion they were following had deep roots. The nomination traces it from Don the Beachcomber's in Hollywood in the 1930s and Trader Vic's in Oakland in 1938, through returning servicemen who had been stationed in the Pacific, the first tourist flights to Honolulu in 1947 and Hawaii's statehood in 1959. Tom Wolf of the Ohio Historic Preservation Office told the Associated Press in 2000 that the Polynesian restaurant trend was inspired by servicemen coming home from the South Pacific after World War II.

Who designed the building depends on the source. The National Register nomination names Ralph Sounik and Ned Eller of Design Associates of Columbus as the architects and Coburn Morgan as interior designer, and says Morgan designed the interiors, much of the exterior, the artifacts and the fountains, and recommended the architectural firm to the owners. WOSU described Morgan as the building's designer. Wikipedia and Columbus Navigator, drawing on the 2014 book Kahiki Supper Club: A Polynesian Paradise in Columbus, say Bernard C. Altenbach drew the first design, styled on a Polynesian or New Guinea meeting house, before he grew too busy and Design Associates took over.

Ground was broken in July 1960, according to the nomination; Columbus Underground gives June 1960. The building cost more than $1 million, a figure the Columbus Dispatch put at about $7.3 million in 2010 dollars, and the Kahiki opened in February 1961. The nomination quotes a company newsletter recalling that people waited for hours in the cold to get in.

The building

The Kahiki was a large A-frame on a corner lot east of downtown, visible from several blocks away. Its defining feature was the roof: a curved gable that swept down on both sides and was usually compared to a ship or a war canoe. The National Register nomination describes it as covered in individually cut asphalt shingles in a red, white and black geometric pattern, with abstract fish along the ridge and a pelican at the tip, a symbol, in the company's words, of plentiful food and good luck. Columbus Underground gives the building's height as 40 feet. The form, according to the nomination, was modeled on the young men's houses of the Yap Islands and the men's ceremonial houses of New Guinea.

Two replicas of Easter Island heads flanked the walk to the door. The nomination describes them as black, 20 feet high, built of concrete, with fire spewing from the top at night. Past them, a short footbridge with gold handrails crossed a narrow moat to hexagon-shaped front doors. Columbus Navigator, citing the 2014 book, credits German Village artist Philip E. Kientz, a Coast Guard veteran who also worked on the Lazarus Christmas displays, with carving the moai that stood outside.

Inside, a dark vestibule lit by blacklight had water dripping down cave-like walls into a pool. It opened into a round foyer built as a grass hut around a tiki-mask fountain that was periodically wrapped in fog. Beyond lay the dining room, laid out as a village of grass huts along a central "street," watched over by a towering tiki goddess with red glowing eyes and a working fireplace in her mouth. A row of built-in aquariums lined the east wall. Windows along the west wall looked into an indoor rain forest with live birds and a thunderstorm, lightning included, every 20 to 30 minutes. The Outrigger Bar, set inside an oval hut, held two cages of macaws. Water poured from tiki heads into giant clam-shell sinks in the restrooms.

Sources disagree about the building's size. Wikipedia, citing the 2014 book, gives 20,000 square feet; Business First described it in 2000 as a 9,000-square-foot restaurant. Kahiki Foods says it seated more than 500 people.

The Mystery Drink and the guests

The Kahiki's bars poured drinks with names such as the Malayan Mist, Blue Hurricane, Instant Urge, Maiden's Prayer, Misty Isle, Jungle Fever, Head Hunter, Zombie and Smoking Eruption. Columbus Underground, quoting an undated Kahiki pamphlet, says each had its own sculpted mug that customers could buy in the gift shop, that the bars went through up to 1,000 pineapples and 2,000 bottles of rum a month, and that the restaurant once sold more than 18,000 drinks in a single May.

The best-known order was the Mystery Drink: a bowl for four people holding eight ounces of rum and brandy around a smoking volcano. A gong summoned the Mystery Girl, who presented the bowl to the restaurant's main tiki, bowed, then carried it to the table and gave the party leis of orchids that, according to Columbus Underground, were flown in two or three times a week from Hilo, Hawaii. The same pamphlet said the cocktail waitresses were wives of servicemen or ex-servicemen from Japan or Korea, trained for two months before the February 1961 opening. The Beachcomber Trio played a mix of Latin jazz and Polynesian music; a 1965 recording of the trio at the Kahiki was later reissued on vinyl.

The Kahiki drew visiting celebrities. Columbus Underground and Columbus Navigator list Bob Hope, Gypsy Rose Lee, Van Johnson, Milton Berle, Andy Williams, Robert Goulet and Zsa Zsa Gabor, who is remembered for ordering milk. When the restaurant closed, the Associated Press saw photographs of Art Linkletter, George Hamilton and Merv Griffin in its upstairs office. A 1967 advertisement in Life magazine, quoted in the National Register nomination, called it "The World's Most Elaborate Polynesian Supper Club."

The Kahiki also figures in a darker chapter of the city's history. On the night of May 30, 1975, a dispute over a $98.25 check involving two young Black couples ended with three of them arrested and severely beaten by police, according to a 2021 Columbus Monthly account. The U.S. Justice Department opened an investigation, two Columbus police officers temporarily lost their jobs, and what became known as the "Kahiki incident" is remembered among longtime Black residents as a civil rights turning point.

Owners, frozen food and the National Register

Sapp and Henry sold the Kahiki to Mitch Boich in 1978, and Boich brought Michael Tsao into partnership the same year, according to the National Register nomination. Sapp told the Dispatch in 2010 that they had sold it to finance a new restaurant, the Wine Cellar, and were sorry within two weeks. Tsao became sole owner in 1988, according to Columbus Underground and WOSU.

The business was incorporated in 1993. In 1995 Tsao began selling Kahiki egg rolls in grocery stores, and a food processing plant was built behind the restaurant that year to supply grocery stores and state institutions.

The Ohio Historic Preservation Office nominated the Kahiki to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, at the state level of significance, under Criteria A and C. Because the building was only 36 years old, it also had to meet Criteria Consideration G, which applies to properties less than 50 years old. The nomination called the Kahiki the largest and best-preserved Polynesian restaurant in Ohio, "and perhaps the country," Ohio's only Polynesian restaurant, and the last of Columbus's supper clubs, noting that the Jai Lai was being converted into a sports bar that year. The Columbus Historic Resources Commission voted its unanimous support on August 21, 1997, and the National Park Service listed the property on December 8, 1997, as reference 97001461.

Closing and demolition

The listing did not protect the building. Business First reported in April 2000 that a contractor for the Walgreen Co. had sought a building permit for the site. In May, Tsao told the paper that the cost of renovating and maintaining the 40-year-old building was prohibitive, that annual revenue had stalled at $2.5 million, and that changing demographics on that stretch of East Broad Street worked against it. He said Walgreen's interest had "just moved our process along faster." Columbus Underground reports that the property was sold to Walgreen on June 30, 2000.

The Associated Press reported on August 24, 2000, that the Kahiki would serve its last Smoking Eruption that Friday, August 25. Tsao said a drastic decline in business made closing unavoidable and that Walgreen was getting undue blame. He estimated the restaurant had served more than 10 million customers. Wikipedia gives the closing date as August 26. Kahiki Foods' own timeline on its website places the closing in 2001.

The demolition crew had to open part of the roof to remove the stone fireplace, according to Columbus Underground. The 110 employees kept their jobs at Kahiki Foods. The AP reported that a new plant near the airport would open the following Wednesday; Business First had reported in May that wholesale production had already moved to a building three times the size of the 7,000-square-foot commissary next to the restaurant. Decorations and furniture went into storage. A Walgreens store was built on the site.

Tsao hoped to rebuild the Kahiki downtown. He looked at Polaris, Easton and the Arena District, and favored the west bank of the Scioto River near Veterans Memorial; Business First's editorial board backed the idea in September 2000. It never happened. His son Jeff told the Dispatch in 2010 that the factory got busy and government support fell short, and then his father died unexpectedly. Wikipedia gives the year of his death as 2005.

What remains

Kahiki Foods carried the name forward. In 2010 its president, Alan Hoover, told the Dispatch that people still occasionally walked up to the Gahanna offices asking for a dinner table. In 2018 CJ CheilJedang of Seoul, South Korea, bought Kahiki Foods. The company says some of its workers also worked at the original restaurant.

Wikipedia records that the Fraternal Order of Moai, a tiki social club, was founded in 2005 partly to preserve the restaurant's history and artifacts. The Dispatch reported in 2010 that the Ohio Preservation Alliance had named the Kahiki one of Ohio's ten most endangered historic buildings before it fell, and that fans bought menus, matchbooks, blueprints and furniture when the contents were auctioned. A carved figure known as George, one of the last statues from the Kahiki, stood at the Grass Skirt Tiki Room downtown until that bar closed in 2019 and has since been restored by Tork Collaborative Arts, according to Columbus Navigator.

Sources

• Kahiki Supper Club — Wikipedia
• National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, The Kahiki, 1997 — National Archives catalog
• National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, The Kahiki (PDF) — National Archives
• NPGallery: Kahiki, The, NRIS 97001461 — National Park Service
• Associated Press, "Historic Polynesian Eatery To Close," August 24, 2000 (Internet Archive copy)
• Business First of Columbus, "Kahiki owner floats concept of riverfront move," May 26, 2000 (Internet Archive copy)
• Business First of Columbus, "Kahiki deserves chance to build Scioto tradition," September 15, 2000 (Internet Archive copy)
• The Columbus Dispatch, "10 years after torches go out, Kahiki memories live," August 25, 2010 (Internet Archive copy)
• WOSU, "Curious Cbus: What Ever Happened To Kahiki Supper Club?," May 27, 2019
• Columbus Underground, "History Lesson: The history of Columbus' most famed 'lost' restaurant - The Kahiki," 2012 (Internet Archive copy)
• Columbus Navigator, "The Kahiki Supper Club Was The Most Iconic Restaurant In Columbus"
• Columbus Monthly, "Remembering the Kahiki Incident," May 2021 (Internet Archive copy)
• Kahiki Foods, "Our Story"
• Kahiki Foods, "Our Company"
• Frozen Foods Biz, "CJ CheilJedang Buys US and German Frozen Food Producers," September 4, 2018