By Peter von Buol
Special to Inside
On New Year's Eve, it will be last call for Mai Tai cocktails at the Palmer House's Trader Vic's restaurant.
For nearly 50 years, Chicago residents and tourists have been able to visit the hotel's restaurant to enjoy its pan-Asian fusion cuisine, as well as its signature tropical drinks. Many of the most well-known tropical drinks, including the Mai Tai, were actually invented by the company's founder, the late Victor Bergeron. Even Wrigley Field features a knock-off of the original Trader Vic's recipe.
Officials at Trader Vic's say that while the Palmer House location will be closing at the end of the year, it plans to reenter the Chicago market with a new partner and hopes to soon reopen at a different location.
The Chicago restaurant, which opened on March 28, 1957, was the fourth Trader Vic's outpost. It still features decor and exotic accents from around the Pacific, including wooden carvings known as tikis, a full-size outrigger canoe that is suspended from the ceiling, and museum-quality antique prints from the published journal of the 18th century British explorer Captain James Cook. Bergeron opened his first location in Oakland, CA, in 1936 and today there are 24 Trader Vic's restaurants around the world.
Hans Richter, the current president of the company, describes Bergeron as a "true innovator" in his lifetime.
"Bergeron's success gained international acclaim and momentum by his ability to cultivate affluent, discriminating customers intrigued by his uncanny knack for introducing unique foods, for careful preparation, and for his inventing exotic and crowd pleasing drinks like the Mai Tai," says Richter.
Bergeron, says Richter, envisioned his restaurants to have the aura of a private club but without the cost of a membership. His restaurants were, and still are, "steeped in Island-style service and atmosphere." Bergeron provided his customers with a worry-free place so they could escape into a world of the highest culinary quality and consistency, like a faux vacation to the tropics.
Bergeron's "worry-free" restaurant has now ballooned into a $50 million restaurant and food business empire.
According to Richter's assistant, Erik Heggen, while the company is in negotiations with a new business partner in Chicago, nothing yet is official. He is cautiously hopeful that the company will soon secure a new location. The new restaurant will be free-standing and will probably be on Michigan Avenue or in the River North neighborhood.
"Nothing is official about the new site and many things can go wrong before it becomes a reality. When we do open a new site in Chicago, it will have the same look as the Trader Vic's in the Palmer House, complete with the tikis and canoes. All the Trader Vic's have the [classic] Polynesian tiki look. I assume the artifacts will travel from the Palmer House to the new location, if and when we have one," says Heggen.
A spokesperson for the Palmer House, Ken Price, says the decision to close the restaurant was "totally a mutual decision" reached by both the hotel and the restaurant company. The new owners, says Price, want to do something different with the space currently used by the restaurant.
James Teitelbaum, author of "Tiki Road Trip: A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America," a book that describes the nation's remaining tiki restaurants and bars, says the loss of the original Chicago location marks the end of an era.
"The loss of Trader Vic's in Chicago marks the closing of the last of the Polynesian restaurants that once existed in the Chicago Loop—not to mention the many other tiki bars scattered around the rest of Chicago. All the few remaining classic Chicago-area tiki locations—such as River Grove's Hala Kahiki—are now in the suburbs," says Teitelbaum.
Like Teitelbaum, Monica Lanum, a docent in the Pacific Halls of the Field Museum of Natural History, says she has enjoyed visiting Trader Vic's since moving to Chicago and will miss it when it closes. Despite a heavy snowstorm on Dec. 8, Lanum visited the restaurant for one last time. "It has always been a favorite of mine because it reminds me of the time my family spent living in Hawaii. Being there always brought back many great memories and warmed my soul. Having the opportunity to go there one final time was a treat!" she said.
Echoing Bergeron's initial plan for the restaurant, Lanum said, "It was a perfect retreat from the bitter winter weather outside. Clearly, many others felt the same way and wanted to say good-bye. It was busier than I've ever seen it."
Teitelbaum says it was unfortunate the new management of the Palmer House decided to close the restaurant just before its 50th anniversary. He says it may be a business decision that they will come to regret.
"Given that this closing is happening one year before the restaurant's 50th anniversary, and now just as the tiki revival is reaching a peak, it represents a major lack of vision on the part of the Palmer House's new ownership," said Teitelbaum. |
