Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I have an extensive list of restaurants and bars from L.A. in the 1920s through 1950s) on my website – https://martinturnbull.com/hollywood-places/ – but the one that gets the most reaction is this place: King’s Tropical Inn which stood at 5741 West Washington Blvd in Culver City. The food was along the lines of southern fried chicken, fries, biscuits with honey, which isn’t very tropical but was evidently deeeeelish. (Someone said to me once: “Yes, Mildred Pierce might have owned it.”) The tropical part was the décor. The tables had little bamboo huts on them and overhead, a painted night sky featured moving stars and clouds. This photo is from 1928. I have collected a bunch of photos on the place, which you can see here: King’s Tropical Inn.
And now that site is home to a paint store, which seems a crying shame, doesn’t it? (May 2018)
Were there two separate locations (one building looks far more modest and doesn’t have a dome) or did the owners simply add on to the smaller building and add a dome later?
Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I have an extensive list of restaurants and bars from L.A. in the 1920s through 1950s) on my website – https://martinturnbull.com/hollywood-places/ – but the one that gets the most reaction is this place: King’s Tropical Inn which stood at 5741 West Washington Blvd in Culver City. The food was along the lines of southern fried chicken, fries, biscuits with honey, which isn’t very tropical but was evidently deeeeelish. (Someone said to me once: “Yes, Mildred Pierce might have owned it.”) The tropical part was the décor. The tables had little bamboo huts on them and overhead, a painted night sky featured moving stars and clouds. This photo is from 1928. I have collected a bunch of photos on the place, which you can see here: King’s Tropical Inn.
Were there two separate locations (one building looks far more modest and doesn’t have a dome) or did the owners simply add on to the smaller building and add a dome later?
King’s was a round for a while so I suspect a dome was added later, but that’s just speculation.