Toronto's Forgotten Tiki Past

 Part 1: Stephen Crane's Bali Hai Room at the Ports of Call

Long before the Shameful Tiki opened it's Bamboo Doors inviting Toronto to jump on the Tiki revival bandwagon there was a time when Toronto the good had her very own Tiki Bars during Tiki's golden age. Legendary Tiki impresarios Steven Crane and Trader Vic Bergeron both opened Polynesian themed restaurants in Toronto.
Erstwhile Actor and restaurateur Steve Crane of the legendary Luau Room in Beverly Hills and arguably the third most prominent member of Tiki's Mount Rushmore behind only Donn Beach and Victor Bergeron created the Kon-Tiki chain of restaurants in association with Sheraton Hotels in 1958 to compete against Bergeron's Trader Vic's which were at that time being installed in Hilton Hotels.
At some point Crane decided to create another stand alone restaurant chain called Ports of Call where each restaurant had five rooms or Ports which had different themes and presumably with foods and drinks to match but with the main room being the Polynesian themed Bali Hai (Port/Room).
Toronto was soon blessed with one of these Ports of Call sometime in 1963, located uptown at 1145 Yonge Street which was a large corner lot bordering to the south with Shaftsbury Ave and once home to the venerable Northgate Hotel . The Bali Hai room as it's centerpiece even played host to the then Ontario Premier John Robarts with a $100 a plate fete in his honour. One of the star dishes on their menu according to John Chuckman was the Pressed Duck which was an American / Chinese fusion dish first concocted in Chicago and apparently the Bali Hai was the only place north of the border where it could be had. After I started working full time, one of the first staff Christmas parties that I attended was at the Ports of Call, at 1145 Yonge Street. It opened in 1963, and for the next decade was one of the city’s most popular dining establishments. It contained three dining rooms—the Bali Hai Room (Polynesian), the Dickens’ English Inn (roast beef) and Caesar’s Room (Italian). The Ports of Call also had two bars — the Singapore Bar (Asian) and the Batton Rouge Bar (French), the latter featuring dancing. I remember that when entering the restaurant, I walked over a wooden foot bridge that spanned a stream of flowing water. We could remain for an evening at the Ports of Call, as after dinner, we could visit one of the bars for music and dancing. By 1975 Crane had sold his Ports of Call and the new owners rechristened it the Ports which presumably did not include a Tiki bar. The original building was torn down sometime in the late 1970's replaced with the present building, a large office high-rise of typical bland form and function.
(Below are some photos of the building in the Day / Night, signage, drink menu , matchbook covers and the building today)