Trader Vic's: Closing Night Brings Memories

For 43 years, under the rattan canopy of Polynesian kitsch, Trader Vic's served up the mai tais, the gardenia-trimmed scorpions and a South Seas eclectic cuisine that offered a journey into the exotic - while north of the 45th parallel.

Having lost its spot in the Westin Hotel, Trader Vic's is moving out. Saturday night, 400 loyal customers paid $100 each at a closing-night party - a night of nostalgia - that will benefit more than a dozen charities.

Just who are the longtime patrons?

Name the Northwest's most prominent companies and their corporate heads and they were there, with rare appearances by Bill Boeing Jr., even rarer still, George Weyerhaeuser, and then fund-raising regulars like Charles Pigott and Bruce Nordstrom, and a many Westin Hotel past commanders-in-chief. It almost seemed like a Republican convention.

Or perhaps a class reunion, presided over by manager Harry Wong, at Trader Vic's for 39 years. He knows them all, received them couple by couple as they arrived.

"Oh, Harry, it's so sad!"

"Harry, I just have to touch you." A customer rested his forehead against Wong's cheek. "We will see you again?"

"Harry, what will we do without you?"

"Harry, Mrs. Westinghouse (of THE Westinghouses) says hello."

Harry was patient. Harry was gracious. Harry has been so busy, "I'm numb. It just occurred to me that I won't have to go to work." Harry is going to retire.

As for Trader Vic's, one of four top restaurants in the pre-World's Fair days, Lynn L. Bergeron, chairman of the international chain, said it will reopen in Seattle, but probably not downtown.

And it's bound to have a different look. All the wonderful '50s tropical kitsch - rice-paper lamp shades, model ships, blow fish, shark jaws - are to be auctioned at 10 a.m. Friday.

But for the evening, everything was the way it's been for years, the wining and dining place of the money crowd where they gathered for senior-prom dinners and wedding receptions, where the walls bear plaques with their yacht-club flags.

The evening-long cocktail party shifted into corner conversational pods, offering their recollections:

Mary Robinson: "The thing about Trader Vic's is that whenever you went there you always saw people you knew. People loved to have their parties here." With her was her husband, John, and Albert and Audrey Kerry, who recalled an elaborate Trader Vic's party long ago, given by Jim Scripps (as in the newspaper family).

Isa Nelson: "We had our fifth wedding anniversary here." It was also the mecca of her sorority sisters, who dressed up to look legal drinking age and then tossed down the scorpions. The evidence: "When you went back to the sorority house with all those gardenias . . . "

Burt Nelson: "The Metropolitan Round Table met here. That included all the eligible bachelors in town. Whenever there was a new girl in town we brought her along but Town Girls (women who were from Seattle) couldn't come. You lost your (Round Table) eligibility as soon as you married."

Leni Roberts: "A favorite . . . but do you remember the mink-lined booth at the El Gaucho?"

Jill Heerensperger: "Our wedding reception for 400 was here (1973). We come back once every couple months. We love it. It's such an old-time establishment."

June Boeing: "I had my bridal shower here in December . . . both of us have Trader Vic's memories in our past lives. (June and Bill Boeing married in January. Both had been widowed.) I wore this suit (white linen with cut work) at Bill's daughter's 40th birthday party at the Trader Vic's in San Francisco. This suit just likes Trader Vic's."

Constance Rice: "One of my dearest friends, Mark Cooper, who was executive vice president of the Seattle Urban League, used to come here. A lot of corporate executives from downtown met here and plotted how to make the city better. So it reminds me of good times for good deeds."

Karen Wong: "My father (Robert Chinn) is the one who suggested to Harry to come to work here . . . No more mai tais. No more cheese bangs."

Don Cruickshank, former Trader Vic's maitre d' and now in hotel management: "I've been a customer here ever since I was an employee. I see people who were here for their proms. Now they're introducing me to their children."

And the guest book said the rest, hundreds of signatures: "Fondest memories," "We'll miss you."

About Town by Nancy Bartley appears Sunday and Monday in the Scene section of The Times.