Trader Vic's is a restaurant and tiki bar chain headquartered in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley, California, Berkeley and Oakland, California, Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisc ...

, United States. Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. (December 10, 1902 in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

– October 11, 1984 in Hillsborough, California) founded a chain of

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

n-themed restaurants that bore his nickname, "Trader Vic". He was one of two people who claimed to have invented the Mai Tai. The other was his amicable competitor for many years, Donn Beach of the "Don the Beachcomber" restaurants.

History

Bergeron attended Heald College in San Francisco. On November 17, 1934, using $500 in borrowed money, Bergeron opened a small bar/restaurant across from his uncle's bar at San Pablo Avenue and 65th Street in the Golden Gate District of

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

. He named it Hinky Dink's. In 1937, Bergeron made a trip to Cuba to expand his bartender skills. When he returned to the United States, he toured Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood. These two trips inspired him to start decorating the bar with an increasingly tropical flair. To match the bar's new tiki theming, Bergeron changed the name from Hinky Dink's to Trader Vic's. In 1949, Western Hotels executive Edward Carlson convinced Bergeron to open his first franchised location in the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in Seattle. Originally a small bar named ''The Outrigger'', it was expanded into a full restaurant in 1954 and renamed ''Trader Vic's'' in 1960. Due to the restaurant's success, Bergeron worked with Western Hotels to open Trader Vic's locations in a number of their hotels. In 1940, Bergeron opened a Trader Vic's location in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

and in 1951 at 20 Cosmo Place in San Francisco. Because Bergeron lacked the capital to expand, he partnered with Hilton Hotels. Conrad Hilton opened his first Trader Vic's in

The Beverly Hilton The Beverly Hilton is a hotel located on an property at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards in Beverly Hills, California, United States. The Beverly Hilton has hosted many awards shows, charity benefits, and entertainment ...

in 1955. Two years later, Hilton opened another Trader Vic's in The Palmer House in Chicago, and then licensed the Trader Vic's brand for use throughout his chain for $2,000,000, retaining Bergeron to oversee the decoration, staffing and operation of the restaurants for an annual salary of $65,000. Hilton soon estimated the popular Trader Vic's establishments were earning his hotel chain $5 million a year. Sheraton Hotels quickly opened competing chains of tiki restaurants in their hotels, known as Ports O' Call and Kon-Tiki. During the Tiki culture fad of the 1950s and 1960s, as many as 25 Trader Vic's restaurants were in operation worldwide. They all featured the popular mix of Polynesian artifacts, unique cocktails, and exotic cuisine. The chain of restaurants grew and is credited as one of the first successful themed chains, a marketing model that many other restaurants followed. In 1972 the original location in Oakland was closed and replaced by a bayfront restaurant in nearby Emeryville, now considered the chain's flagship restaurant. In the 1980s and 1990s, the chain began to shrink as the tiki theme carried little resonance with a younger generation. Poor locations or less trendy addresses took a further toll on the chain's popularity. While many of the original locations have closed, Trader Vic's once again grew to 18 locations around the globe as of July 2018. As of 2024, there are three Trader Vic's restaurants in the United States, one in Europe, ten in the Middle East, two in Asia, and one in Africa. The Trader Vic's Corporation has also franchised restaurants and bars under the names the Mai Tai Lounge (all locations defunct), Trader Vic's Island Bar & Grill (opened 2010 in Sarasota, Florida, shuttered in 2013 – where the company experimented with a Margaritaville-like concept), and Señor Pico. There is one remaining Señor Pico location at The Palm Dubai.

Drinks

According to the Trader Vic's website, the Mai-Tai was invented by "Trader Vic" Bergeron in 1944 in Oakland, California. Beyond the Mai Tai, Bergeron's other more famous drinks included the Fog Cutter and the Scorpion Bowl. Both drinks were served in a specific and highly decorated mug or bowl. His take on a

Hot buttered rum Hot buttered rum is a mixed drink containing rum, butter, hot water or cider, a sweetener, and various spices (usually cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves). It is especially popular in the fall and winter and is traditionally associated with the holiday ...

was also an early example calling for a specific ceramic mug, in this case a skull. The Scorpion Bowl in particular and its many variations proliferated onto the cocktail menus of virtually all subsequent Tiki bars. The menus from his restaurants could list dozens of different tropical drinks. As was the case with Don the Beachcomber, rum was the hallmark ingredient in most of his cocktails, but Vic is also credited with creating the ''Eastern Sour'', which employed less common (for Tiki drinks) rye whiskey, and another drink using even more rarely used tequila (the ''Mexican El Diablo'').

Headquarters

The company is headquartered in

. At times the company had its headquarters in several locations in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

, including Corte Madera and San Rafael.

Current locations

Former locations

Books of recipes and stories

* ''Trader Vic's Book of Food and Drink'' (1946) * ''Bartender's Guide by Trader Vic'' (1947) * ''Trader Vic's Kitchen Kibitzer'' (1952) * ''Trader Vic's Pacific Island Cookbook'' (1968) * ''Trader Vic's Bartenders Guide'' (1972) * ''The Menehunes'' (1972) * ''Trader Vic's Book of Mexican Cooking'' (1973) * ''Frankly Speaking: Trader Vic's Own Story'' (1973) () * ''Trader Vic's Rum Cookery & Drinkery'' (1974) * ''Trader Vic's Helluva Man's Cookbook'' (1976)

Books published by third parties

* ''Trader Vic's Tiki Party!: Cocktails & Food to Share with Friends'' * ''Cocktails of the South Pacific and Beyond'' (with a detailed early history of Trader Vic's original location) * ''Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki'' by Martin Cate with Rebecca Cate discusses the franchise

In popular culture

The song "

Werewolves of London "Werewolves of London" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, written by Zevon, LeRoy Marinell and Waddy Wachtel. It first appeared on '' Excitable Boy'' (1978), Zevon's third studio album, then it was released as a s ...

," a Top 40 hit co-written by

Warren Zevon Warren William Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer and songwriter. His most famous compositions include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner". All t ...

and appearing on his 1978 album ''

Excitable Boy ''Excitable Boy'' is the third studio album by American musician Warren Zevon. The album was released on January 18, 1978, by Asylum Records. It includes the single " Werewolves of London", which reached No. 21 and remained in the American Top 40 ...

'', contains the line "I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's." The Trader Vic's in London opened in 1963. The restaurant is also referenced by Bill Murray's character, Frank Cross, to John Forsythe's character, Lew Hayward, in the 1988 movie ''

Scrooged ''Scrooged'' is a 1988 American Christmas fantasy black comedy film directed by Richard Donner and written by Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue. Based on the 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol'' by Charles Dickens, ''Scrooged'' is a modern re ...

''. In the film '' Frost/Nixon'' the character of David Frost orders takeout from Trader Vic's while staying in

, which formerly had a Trader Vic's location inside the hotel. The character orders a cheeseburger. In the film ''

Thunder Force is a series of shooter video games developed by the Japanese software company Technosoft and published by Sega. The franchise is recognized for its distinctive gameplay, graphics, and synthesizer-based chiptune music soundtracks. There are s ...

'' Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy dine at a Trader Vic's (scene filmed on location at Atlanta Trader Vic's). In the New York Times bestseller and 2012 100 Notable Books, ''Beautiful Ruins'', by Jess Walter, Trader Vic's in Seattle Washington is the setting of a scene between two characters in September 1967. In Chapter 16, "After the Fall" a couple meet at Trader Vic's and one walks "into a burst of warm air and bamboo, tiki and totem, dugout canoe hung from the ceiling."

References

External links

{{Commons category
Trader Vic's company website
Tiki culture Tiki bars Restaurant chains in the United States Theme restaurants 1934 establishments in California Companies based in Emeryville, California Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area Defunct restaurants in Pearl District, Portland, Oregon 20th-century American businesspeople