During the Nineteen Fifties, the parcel of land at 3599 North Federal Highway — a sleepy, two-lane stretch of U.S. 1 — appeared an odd location for a lavish tropical retreat. The duo noticed promise, nonetheless, hoping to create an East Coast interpretation of the favored Polynesian eating places from Don the Beachcomber in bustling cities like Los Angeles and Chicago.
When the Mai-Kai opened its doorways on December 28, 1956, the A-frame constructing was thought-about the costliest restaurant within the nation, costing $350,000 to construct. The venue was in contrast to anything — a large tiki-like institution providing a heady mixture of lovely girls, robust drinks, and tropical kitsch. During its early years, the Mai-Kai attracted celebrities and socialites for its distinctive supper membership expertise. Guests flocked to feast their eyes on Polynesian dancers and fill their bellies with modern Asian-themed fare and rum-fueled libations.
Current Mai-Kai managing associate Bill Fuller likens the Thornton brothers to Disney’s early Imagineers — maybe among the many nation’s unique hospitality innovators — in a position to envision a completely immersive expertise far past its time.
For a long time, the Mai-Kai remained an immersive — if not completely transportive — expertise, a uncommon glimpse into the grandeur of the nation’s solely remaining mid-century Polynesian supper membership.
The Thornton household — together with Bob’s spouse Mireille and daughter Kulani — alongside generations of prolonged household and longtime workers, carried the founding companions’ imaginative and prescient and legacy ahead, even incomes a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.
“My father fell in love with the Polynesian folks and a Polynesian lady, which solely fueled his want to duplicate an genuine expertise on the Mai-Kai,” Kulani Thornton Gelardi tells New Times. “He spared no expense, immersing himself in it, going to nice lengths and excessive element to verify the expertise was a real illustration of Polynesian tradition.”
Those a long time of exhausting work and care got here — actually — crashing down when in October 2020, torrential rain and a malfunctioning sprinkler system resulted in a whole roof collapse over the venue’s kitchen, marking the institution’s first prolonged closure since its opening day.
After a yr of wrestle and uncertainty, when the scope and value of the restoration turned an excessive amount of to shoulder, the Thorntons put the increase on the market, a lot to the shock of longtime followers.
“We by no means wished to promote the Mai-Kai,” says Geraldi. “It’s been 60 years, and our hearts virtually broke on the considered dropping any piece of this place. Instead, we wished to do what my father would have accomplished — discover a approach to deliver it into the long run in order that it could possibly be round for an additional 60 years.”
There was a world sigh of reduction from Mai-Kai followers all over the place when the household introduced the restaurant would reopen — underneath a brand new possession crew alongside them — one dedicated to investing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into intensive refurbishment and renovations.
Bill Fuller, cofounder of Miami’s Barlington Group, Mad Room Hospitality, and managing associate within the Mai-Kai, got here to the historic institution’s rescue.
Nearly 18 months since embarking on the three way partnership, Fuller says he’s in full awe of the legend surrounding the historic institution. Over the previous yr of sifting by means of the property’s wealthy legacy, he is continued to unearth the brothers’ unexecuted plans, renderings, and concepts that could possibly be thought-about modern even right this moment.
Fuller wonders: Could Bob and Jack have identified the Mai-Kai would endure for many years to return?
Moving ahead, Fuller says he shares a standard aim with the remaining Thornton relations: renew the founding brothers’ unique imaginative and prescient and propel the property into the long run through a inventive plan that serves to exchange growing old infrastructure whereas preserving the acquainted inside parts in place.
It’s a large enterprise that requires changing the growing old roof, electrical, and air-con techniques; redesigning the car parking zone; reimagining the doorway with a torch-lit drawbridge and outside bar; and absolutely renovating the kitchen and occasion area.
“But what everybody remembers concerning the Mai-Kai remains to be right here, and the brand new parts solely serve to intensify that nostalgia,” guarantees Fuller, who shares that 95 % of the renovations have been made to the constructing’s exterior. “This institution has endured for over 60 years. Our aim is to see generations to return benefit from the area for an additional 60 years.”
Now, greater than two years because the Mai-Kai closed and with dozens of plans approvals behind them, an finish is in sight. On January 26, the Oakland Park’s Development Review Committee gave the Mai-Kai’s web site plans the inexperienced mild, permitting the $8.5 million revamp of the two.7-acre property to maneuver ahead.
Fuller says the aim is to reopen in June, a launch timed to coincide with the return of the Hukilau, the annual occasion that pulls 1000’s to Fort Lauderdale for a four-day, Tiki-themed celebration. The Mai-Kai is the unique house for lots of the symposiums, tastings, and occasions.
When the doorways open, company will return to the Mai-Kai’s sprawling, 26,000-square-foot area the place little has modified. The eight themed rooms — from the nautical-themed bar to the eating areas named for South Seas islands — stay comparatively untouched, ensures Gelardi, save just a few refurbishments.
An essential a part of the partnership was to maintain the menu the identical whereas additionally working with the cooks to introduce new dishes with a extra modern really feel, says Geraldi.
“My father was virtually forward of the time, providing issues like ceviche and lettuce wraps that folks did not perceive 30 to 40 years in the past however are actually staples you may discover on virtually any menu,” says Geraldi.
Since the mid-Nineteen Fifties, this Polynesian eatery has been serving the entire “dinner and a present” expertise, beginning with its fusion menu of Cantonese-American dishes. While the menu has modified a number of occasions over time, longtime classics — the pupu platter, barbecue ribs, Peking duck, and Shanghai hen — will make a triumphant return.
Tiki lovers can be blissful to listen to that essentially the most mystical ingredient of the Mai-Kai, the Molokai Bar, will return untouched, serving the identical tropical libations that span a long time, recipes untouched since their unique inspiration from Don the Beachcomber.
To this present day, solely a handful of individuals — Gelardi’s cousin, mom, sister, and the daughter of one of many Mai-Kai’s first bartenders — have intimate information of the venue’s longtime, well-guarded cocktail recipes.
Even now, they’re the one ones entrusted to organize the syrups and juices that give character and shade to every distinctive libation served in ceramic mugs, big goblets, or ornamental glassware. Made from scratch, they’re batched and bottled gallons at a time and labeled by numbers somewhat than names.
Before it closed, the Mai-Kai’s Polynesian revue was the longest-running present of its sort within the nation.
Mai-Kai picture
“There’s nonetheless that little bit of secrecy. Today, there are only a few folks that may make a Mai-Kai drink by themselves,” she says.
While the drink menu stays untouched, just a few trendy twists with specialty or seasonal libations can be added highlights, says Fuller. Some can be served in customized glassware from Tiki Farm, one of many world’s high designers of ceramic Tiki mugs, so as to add to the Mai-Kai’s present assortment.
To additional honor the legendary cocktails of the Mai-Kai, Fuller additionally started the painstaking means of sourcing an old-world model of rum that would seize the flavour profile of the venue’s unique base spirit.
According to Geraldi, her father and his early crew of mixologists understood their tropical cocktails wanted the best sort of rum. “It’s a taste that’s a lot completely different than what most individuals assume it is presupposed to be. It’s not a sipping rum or a candy rum. It’s extra wild and funky, meant to offset the daring flavors of the syrups and juices.”
To achieve this, the crew collaborated with grasp distiller Don Benn, sourcing rums from the West Indies Rum Distillery in Barbados, and the Long Pond Distillery in Jamaica, to create a proprietary mix that’s excellent for crafting the Mai-Kai’s tropical drinks, explains Fuller, a throwback to the model of rums made within the Nineteen Forties and ’50s, however aged and refined.
But it is Mireille — who’s led the household possession crew since her husband’s demise in 1989 and is understood lovingly because the matriarch of the Mai-Kai — who provides the best-kept secret of the Mai-Kai’s return.
At 85, she’ll proceed her inventive legacy as a key steward in preserving the household’s legacy and the Mai-Kai traditions by choreographing and directing the stay dances for the institution’s Polynesian Islander revue.
It’s a title she’s held because the Nineteen Sixties when she was a dancer, a legacy that earned the Mai-Kai its title because the longest-running Polynesian dance present within the continental United States earlier than its closure.
“When we had our first assembly with Bill, and I realized I may proceed to direct and choreograph the present, let me let you know, it was exhausting to not cry,” Mireille tells New Times. “Over the previous few months, it has been enjoyable to look backward in any respect the numbers we have accomplished to place collectively a brand new present.”
For its grand relaunch, the present will provide “golden nuggets” of years previous — snippets from earlier reveals Mireille reviewed from the 80s and the 90s, introduced collectively as highlights to share the story of touring by means of the islands of the South Pacific. As at all times, the 45-minute efficiency will accompany two reservation-only dinner seatings every night time, with the meal timed to complete with the present’s grand finale.
Now, alongside Gelardi, the mother-daughter duo stands because the final remaining bridge that connects Mai-Kai’s previous and current. They say that carrying the torch into its latest iteration is an honor.
“The title ‘Mai-Kai’ means “the very best,” and that is precisely what we have at all times aimed to ship,” sums up Gelardi. “It’s what my father, and we, have at all times endeavored to be. It’s our household’s job to hold out his imaginative and prescient whereas including to it. The work we’re doing now’s what my dad would have wished, one thing he did many occasions himself to deliver the Mai-Kai the place it’s right this moment.”