Kahiki Supper Club Read online

  Eric Hoffman, Richard’s son, fondly recalls the early days: “It was a family operation: Mom worked in the shop while Dad did all the artwork. The Kahiki business really helped my dad through the years. I remember working on mugs and bowls all summer and delivering them to the Kahiki. Sometimes they would even give us coupons for a free dinner after we made a delivery.”

  Hoffman Pottery would go on to make some of the most prolific lines of Kahiki products ever made. The list consisted of the Mystery Bowl, the Idol’s Cast, the Headhunter Mug, a Coconut Mug, Candle Holders, salt-and pepper shakers, condiment jars and the Hot Buttered Rum Mug. Both the Kahiki Mystery Bowl and the Idol’s Cast featured alternating brown and black triangles supported by three tiki idols. Original owner Bill Sapp said that only twenty-five of the Mystery Bowls were made because they were expensive, broke easily and were prone to being stolen.

  James Hite’s Hitiki Maori ashtray. Courtesy Joe Schuster.

  In More Columbus Unforgettables, local historian Bob Thomas profiled Dick Hoffman. Thomas noted that Hoffman created his fine-textured ceramics using his own recipe, which included “ball clay from Kentucky, kaolin from Florida, feldspar from Canada, talc from the southern United States and flint from Zanesville, Ohio.” In addition to his work for the Kahiki, he produced items for Lazarus Department Stores, promotional items for First National Bank and the fez salt-and pepper shakers for the Shriners. He also made thousands of personalized birth and wedding plates.

  Being a commercial potter, Hoffman used various marks to identify his work. This can be seen on some of his creations for the restaurant. For example, most pieces are imprinted with the word “KAHIKI.” Some will then have the words “HOFFMAN POTTERY” forming the upper and lower arcs of a circle, with “Col’s HP Ohio” dividing it in half horizontally. Others will have “Ceramics by Hoffman” in script. There are also some marked “RH HANDCRAFT” over a loop or “HANDCRAFT BY HOFFMAN,” with each word connected by a curvy line. According to Eric Hoffman, the molds for all the Hoffman Pottery stuff were all in a garage, which sustained a lot of water damage, and were subsequently destroyed.

  The Hoffman Pottery was located on Main Street in Columbus. Courtesy Eric Hoffman.

  During the last few years of the Kahiki, the Headhunter Mugs were made by another local ceramicist named Mario Torres. These mugs varied widely in quality, with most of them taking on a, for lack of a better term, “globby” appearance. Usually these can be found with just a handwritten Kahiki logo on the bottom. Other mugs followed, such as the Fountain Mug and Candle Holder, another mug with the tri-footed tiki. The Mystery Bowls at this time were still being ordered from Orchids of Hawaii, but some were made by Mario with the Kahiki hand logo on the bottom. Even after the Kahiki was razed, a gift shop located in the same building as the Kahiki frozen foods offices continued to sell these mugs. Eventually the gift shop closed, and the mug production stopped.

  In 2005, the Fraternal Order of Moai was formed in Columbus, Ohio. Its two core values are good works and preservation. Similar to the Shriners, it is a fraternal organization with a Polynesian twist. Its logo is the Kahiki fireplace. From its humble beginnings with the Kahiki Chapter, the order has grown to a national entity with various chapters operating all over the United States. It has commissioned a handful of mugs dedicated to the remembrance of the Kahiki. One such mug was produced for the 2007 Hot Rod Hula Hop. It was a re-creation of the Kahiki fireplace and was manufactured in a limited edition of one hundred. In 2013, the order commissioned a mug based on the “fire fish” that lined the roof of the Kahiki.

  For Richard “Dick” Hoffman, manufacturing pottery was a family affair. Courtesy Eric Hoffman.

  For the benefit of collectors, here is a list of Kahiki pottery by manufacturer, including descriptions:

  HANDMADE BY THE SAPP FAMILY

  • Zombie Mug: held a glass and had a zombie face on the mug.

  • Rum Barrel: large brown barrel with raised Rum Barrel lettering.

  • Ashtrays: round with face and small circular indentations.

  • Oil Lamps: large reddish/brown tiki Base.

  HOFFMAN POTTERY

  The earliest are marked “Ceramics by Hoffman.” The later items are marked “Hoffman Pottery.”

  • Mystery Bowl: alternating brown and black triangles supported by three tikis.

  • Idol’s Cast: alternating brown and black triangles supported by three tikis.

  • Headhunter Mug: brown with green interior; various Hoffman stamps with some having a carved Kahiki on the bottom.

  • Coconut Mug: brown with Hoffman Pottery logo on bottom.

  • Candle Holders: very rare and might not have been used in the restaurant.

  • Salt-and Pepper Shakers: moai heads with Hoffman Pottery printed on the bottom; both green and brown colors exist with green being the most popular.

  The “dimpled” appearance of the ashtray was made by Marcy Sapp using a pencil eraser to create texture. Courtesy Eric Hoffman.

  Kahiki salt-and pepper shakers manufactured by Hoffman Pottery (later produced in Japan). Courtesy Joe Schuster.

  • Condiment Jar: brown coconut shape with Kahiki in raised white lettering.

  • Hot Buttered Rum Mug: brown with cartoonish face.

  ORCHIDS OF HAWAII

  • Headhunter Mug #1: brown color with raised imprint on bottom.

  • Skull Mug #2: white with shading and a handle, as well as raised imprint on bottom.

  • Coconut Mug: brown with white dots.

  • Volcano Bowl: used as the Mystery Bowl.

  • Scorpion Bowl: small version of the volcano bowl minus the volcano.

  A couple of commercial artist James Hite’s Hitiki planters. Courtesy Joe Schuster.

  7

  THE MAKER OF THE MOAI

  In a piece of experimental archaeology, a team of local and U.S. researchers showed that the massive statues, known as moai, can be moved from side to side by a small number of people, just as one might move a fridge.

  —Rossella Lorenzi

  They are called moai (or mo’ai). They are the massive stone figures carved by the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island between AD 1250 and 1500 (or from roughly the time of the Mongol Empire to Columbus’s discovery of America). Apart from the magnificent building itself, the feature of the Kahiki that is best remembered are the two sixteen-foot-tall concrete moai out in front of the restaurant and the twenty-eight-foot-tall fireplace moai inside. The latter was so impressive that some people estimated it was actually fifty to eighty feet tall.

  The creator of the moai was Philip E. Kientz. Born in 1924 to a family of stonecutters, Kientz was a man who left his mark wherever he went. Both he and his father, also named Philip, were avid collectors of Native American relics and contributed some of their best finds to the Ohio Historical Society. After graduating from South High School in 1942, Kientz saw combat while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. Upon his discharge in 1945, he enrolled in the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). With degree in hand, he found work as an artist and stonemason, eventually opening Kientz Custom Studio. Among the artists he studied with were such local greats as potter Chester Nicodemus, one-time dean of CCAD, and watercolorist Byron Kohn.

  Sculptor Phil Kientz fabricates one of the twin moai that guard the entrance to the Kahiki. Courtesy Shirley Kientz.

  Kientz’s towering fireplace moai dominated the center of the restaurant. Courtesy Shirley Kientz.

  A lifelong resident of German Village, where he built two homes, Kientz and his wife, Shirley, were among the original founders of the German Village Society in the 1960s. Their home was one of the ten opened to the public for the first Haus und Garten Tour. (Shirley purportedly asked tour creator Frank Fetch, “Lord, Frank, who is going to pay a dollar to see these old houses?”) Kientz also designed the organization’s emblem.

  Over the years, Kientz held a variety of jobs. His granddaughter, Stephanie Yochem, noted that “one w
as for Anchor Hocking Glass, and while there, [he] drew many designs which are on many vases and glass ware. He designed the horse head on the Rolling Rock label. I was always asking why we don’t get free beer, but he would laugh and say, ‘I don’t know.’” Other projects were the Nativity scene at the downtown State Auto Insurance building, the Durrell Street of Yesteryear at the original Center of Science and Industry (COSI), the famous Lazarus Christmas windows and even the store’s talking Mr. Tree. Kientz also contributed to the look of the Wine Cellar and Desert Inn restaurants. Called upon to design the officers’ quarters at Lockbourne Air Force Base, he then was asked to do the same for a military base in New England. According to Stephanie, he even drew the image of “the German beer guy” for Plank’s restaurant in German Village (which may have gotten him a free beer or two). Kientz died on November 9, 2006, at the age of eighty-two.

  Stephanie said that her grandfather was especially proud of his work on the Kahiki. “I’m not sure why, considering all that he had done, but he would always talk of this and make sure we would go and eat dinner there every now and then.” True to the Easter Island heads, Kientz’s moai are minimalist sculptures, composed primarily of large, flat planes, which he cast in concrete. The original Easter Island figures were intended by the Rapa Nui people to represent power and authority. At the Kahiki, the exterior moai, which flanked the main doorway, spouted flames from their crowned heads while the fireplace moai, naturally, had a large flaming, hexagonal mouth that emulated the shape of the front door.

  “The fireplace and the two giant moai outside were a combination of Bernie, Coburn and myself,” Bill said. “Everybody always seemed to come up with an idea, and if it sounded good, we went with it.” Using Coburn’s design, Kientz was also responsible for sculpting the iconic stone head that graced the fountain in the foyer of the restaurant. Interestingly, Bill Sapp and Lee Henry refer to it as the “Pig” or “Pete.” However, during Michael Tsao’s ownership of the restaurant, it came to be called “George” and the “Monkey.”

  When it was announced that the Kahiki might close, columnist Joe Blundo of the Columbus Dispatch invited readers to share their memories. One of those readers was Phil Kientz. “It was a highlight of my life,” Kientz said. “I got to do artwork and stonemasonry.” However, he noted that, along with the Kahiki, the original COSI, the Wine Cellar restaurant and Desert Inn have all been razed. “They keep tearing down everything I did.”

  Kientz’s moai became the ultimate Kahiki collectible.17 Not only were they bigger than the other souvenirs, but they were also considerably rarer. However, Michael Tsao, the restaurant’s last owner, decided to hang onto them when the Kahiki was razed in 2000. He put the moai in storage and installed the “Pig” in the lobby of Kahiki Foods, his frozen food operation. His hope was that the statues would find a new home, possibly along the downtown riverfront if he succeeded with his plans to open a new restaurant there.

  The palm trees, fabricated from real trees, were even taller than the fireplace moai. Courtesy Shirley Kientz.

  In 2006, following the death of their patriarch, the Tsao family decided to dispose of the Kahiki items they had been storing in a downtown warehouse. Coincidentally, Melissa Andrews was interviewing Linda Tsao for a book she was working on. Melissa and her husband, Greg (“Hulacat”), struck a deal with Linda to buy the items, including the twin moai that had stood outside the restaurant and the giant fireplace moai that had been the centerpiece inside. Melissa borrowed all the money she could and put the rest on credit cards to buy everything in the warehouse.

  Jeff Chenault spent an afternoon helping load things onto a large semi-trailer truck. He can attest to the fact that it was completely packed with Kahiki artifacts, so much so that there was not enough room for one of the twin moai. John “tikiskip” Holt, a friend of Greg and Melissa’s, was told he could have it for free as long as he could supply his own transportation and a crane to off-load it, which he did. It is now resting forlornly in his backyard, waiting for the call that might never come to return to service. The other one and the fireplace moai were transported to New England.

  [A]s the driver and I [Hulacat] were strapping the fireplace down, I was excitedly babbling about how great it felt to rescue this symbol of tiki/poly pop culture and waxing about how many thousands had been to the Kahiki, how this, above all things Kahiki, was the most impressive. In my bloated glee I didn’t notice that Merle (the driver) was intent on my blather with some concern knitting across his forehead. I mentioned how the mystery drink was presented to the fireplace moai before serving. Merle asked if the fireplace was ever used in actual worship (as in religious)…Whoa!…realizing that I was treading on sensitive ground (for him) I tried to spin to more benign turf…but just as I was beginning damage control…SOMEONE…my friend and true blue rock of tikidom…said, “Oh Yeah, they had pagan rites and DEVIL WORSHIP every night at the Kahiki.”

  TikiGreg (real name unknown) picks up the story:

  The truck driver didn’t want any part of the fireplace and moai, since he somehow deduced through conversation that they were used for some pagan ritual. This went against his religious beliefs, so he was refusing to move them. But Hulacat and Tikiskip convinced him they were just artifacts from a restaurant, and no bad things were associated with them.

  Andrews stored the fireplace under a tarp in his backyard in Brattleboro, Vermont, while the second of the twin moai wound up in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.

  Then, in November 2013, many of the remaining Kahiki artifacts held by the Tsao family were sold in an online auction. The most significant of the items was the fountainhead—George, or the “Pig.” In an emergency meeting of the Fraternal Order of Moai, it was agreed that it needed to purchase it to ensure that this important piece of restaurant history remained in Columbus. But it would not be cheap. The successful bidder also had to pay to remove a window and rent a forklift to remove the statue from the lobby of Kahiki Foods. Nevertheless, the FOM members pooled their cash. As one of them later related:

  In the final bidding minutes, we were here, in a tiki bar, drinking real Zombies with the owners of the Grass Skirt. And when the bidding went just above the FOM’s limit, the Grass Skirt owners, Amy and Carmen, said, “We will cover it. Win it.” And so we did. So tonight, tiki fans won. This historic artifact will stay in its hometown, and be on display for the public in a tiki bar. And that is what matters…Ahu.

  Unlike the Rapa Nui people, Phil Kientz had to construct the moai in place. Courtesy Shirley Kientz.

  8

  MYSTERY GIRLS AND MYSTERY DRINKS

  The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea Island, are memories apart.

  —Robert Louis Stevenson

  From the beginning, the Kahiki Supper Club was known for its attractive female staff, or wahines (the Maori and Hawaiian word for woman). According to the original advertising brochure, “Most of the cocktail waitresses are the wives of servicemen or ex-servicemen and all are from Japan or Korea. Although none of them had experience in this type of work, they were all trained rigidly for a two-month period prior to the Kahiki opening in February.” Costumed in bikini tops, displaying bare midriffs, and sarongs, they cut quite the figures, especially during the cold Columbus winters.

  In an interview with Renee Montaigne on NPR, Michael Tsao gave his take on the popularity of the Kahiki. “You have to understand to start with, you have to go back into the ’40s and the ’50s. During that time, our military boys have R&R and going into the islands, and experience a phenomenon, which is drinks, relaxation, naked women. When they come back to the mainland, they started restaurants and copied that phenomenon. And that’s how actually Polynesian restaurant is the granddaddy of the theme restaurants.”

  A highlight of any trip to the Kahiki was the appearance of the beautiful Mystery Girl, Kalua (her official name). When summoned by a large brass gong struck by the bartender, the Mystery Girl would appear bearing a massive ceramic bowl with a smoking
volcano in the center.18 She would then sashay up to the main tiki god and, after bowing to the idol, deliver the drink to the appropriate table. Removing a lei of orchids from her own neck, she would place it over the head of the honored guest (originally, the orchids were flown in two to three times a week from Hilo, Hawaii).

  The Kahiki had an enlightened employment policy, offering many immigrants their first American jobs. Courtesy Sapp/Henry.

  Naturally, the drink came with a backstory. Supposedly, it symbolized an ancient sacrificial ritual that could quiet a volcano that was in danger of erupting. “According to legend, the maiden chosen for the sacrifice was usually the Chieftain’s daughter. After several days of ceremony, feasting and luaus, the young lady would climb the volcano and fling herself into its crater.” To further play up the “sacred ritual” aspect of the ceremony, Mystery Drink orders were spaced at least twenty minutes apart. The Mystery Drink itself was a heady concoction containing eight ounces of rum and brandy and intended to serve four people. It should be noted that in the forty-year history of the Kahiki, there were no recorded volcanic eruptions in Columbus.19

  When Linda Sapp was thirteen, she was assigned the job of going through thousands of Kahiki brochures and coloring over the face of one wahine with a black marker. It was not because the young woman was underage, as has been rumored. Rather, she had been advised not to sign the photo release by Arthur Godfrey, a popular radio and television personality, who had taken a shine to her.