In the late 1980s when I worked at the Vancouver Stock Exchange, we’d sometimes hang out at Trader Vic’s, the Polynesian-style bar and restaurant that sat in the parking lot of the Westin Bayshore Hotel.
1961 – 1999:
It’s been gone since 1999—taken to Vancouver Island and left to rot.
I was reminded of Trader Vic’s again when I was reading Aaron Chapman’s Vancouver After Dark and looking at the photo of the building disappearing on a barge underneath the Lion’s Gate bridge.
Designed by architect Reno Negrin, the A-frame building opened in 1961 when the trend for all things Hawaiian was at its height, and Vancouver restaurants mostly served European, Chinese or North American food. Apparently, some well-endowed fertility statues were a bit much for local sensibilities and their presence almost prevented the restaurant from getting a liquor licence. The offending figures were removed and patrons got to drink with their dinner. They could also park their boat right near the front door.
Part of a Chain:
Trader Vic’s was part of an American chain based out of California and founded by Victor Jules Bergeron, who claims to have invented the Mai Tai. The first restaurant opened in Seattle in 1949 (called the Outrigger) and a second followed in Hawaii the following year. At its peak, there were 25 restaurants worldwide, with two in Canada—Vancouver’s and one in Toronto.
Home in Saanich:
The Bayshore sold the building to David Whiffin of Vancouver Island. Whiffin has 25-acres of waterfront property off Mount Newton Cross Road in central Saanich. I wasn’t able to reach Whiffin to ask him what he paid for the building and what his plans are for it now, but according to newspaper accounts he had wanted to turn it either into a tasting room for a vineyard that he didn’t have or renovate it into a sort of farmers market.
Aaron tells me that he remembers going to Trader Vic’s with his parents in the 1980s and dining with Grace McCarthy.
He believes that tiki bars like the Shameful Tiki Room and the Waldorf Hotel are seeing a bit of a revival, so perhaps Trader Vic’s may have come back into vogue if it stuck around for a few more years.
“A whole new millennial crowd would have discovered it. That it’s just sitting in somebody’s yard over on the island and falling apart from neglect is a sad thing,” he says.
For more stories like this one, check out my new Book Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.
With thanks to Patrick Gunn of Heritage Vancouver who kindly sent along the organization’s newsletter from May 1999 with a story about Trader Vic’s.
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