To the list of comments about the old Queen’s Surf, add this great one from retired Star-Bulletin editor Chuck Frankel.
I loved the Barefoot Bar at Queen’s Surf Beach. I proposed to Helga there one midnight in 1962, while S. Mossman, the Isaac brothers and Veroa Tiki performed.
I loved the downstairs bar and restaurant too, where you could get a roast beef buffet dinner for $2.99. I remember the first Sunday when you could buy liquor before noon, and we ordered a pitcher of bloody marys.
On the beach, you sometimes could hear Kui Lee rehearsing “I’ll Remember You.”
On the last day of the Spencecliff operations, a big crowd sang “We’ll Hang Frank Fasi On a Tall Coconut Tree,” to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.”
The bar and restaurants are long gone. Much of the sand on the beach has disappeared. The crowd of beachgoers has dwindled..
I try to swim there daily. I am sometimes the only swimmer in the water.
–Aloha, Chuck Frankel
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Chuck Frankel was a Star-Bulletin editor …
and he alludes to ” Kui Lee rehearsing “I Remember You.” “?!
Ho wow, laulau!
further memories:
“Fasi evicted the popular Queen’s Surf nightclub AND the world-famous Kodak Hula Show from their beachfront sites in Waik?k?, arguing the beach belonged to the public, not to commercial interests.”
That makes no sense. Look at Waikiki beach. it is WHOLLY owned by commercial interests. BIG giant sky blocking, view destroying commercial interests. And it just gets worse. Yes, the public owns the beach. The homeless public.
We need a politician that will retain the Hawai’i of old. Who will develop and support and retain the things that spell Hawai’i to locals and visitors alike. A free hula show that was a major part of tourists’ visit here? Destroyed, eliminated? because it is a commercial thing and the public should use that little area of lawn?!
Gimme a break.
Valuable oral history treasure.
Mahalo !