I'm falling in love with paper ephemera myself -- I've got some friends with jaw-dropping collections. There's no more sweeping through antique malls quickly, though -- it's a lot of time & effort to sift through it all. But so worth it! I'll probably end up ultimately passing the stuff I've found along to friends with larger collections, but the fun is in the discovery.

I agree. It's so much fun to find this stuff, especially when you consider how picked over most of these collections are.

Unfortunately, the older generation in my area doesn't seem to have been into tiki or lounge, so I've never found a lot at thrift sales or auctions. On the plus side, there's not much competition for what's out there.

That Zulu-Lulu... ! Time flies. But this is top notch pop cult archeology.
Great finds! Your bar will become "the talk of the town". If you are not planning to keep it to yourself.
:-)

Great stuff.

My bar is only large enough for about 5 people, so I really can't open it up to the public; that's part of the reason I'm doing these posts.

I love this old paper ephemera, but what I really want are some of the genuine Pacific island masks this antique store has on display. Unfortunately, the owner isn't interested in selling them (and I probably can't afford to buy them anyway).

Gee, why do people spent so much time to invent excuses to get pissed? Time for Oktoberfest, no science need there, just a big stomach.

Dieter, you clearly don't appreciate the need for ambience.

As for Oktoberfest, isn't that technically an excuse to get drunker than usual as well? At least for the tourists. Otherwise, why dress up busty barmaids in Dirndls and fill the beer halls with men in Lederhosen doing the Schuhplattler?

And I've never needed an excuse to get pissed...;-)

Say, MrBaliHai, in searching through old bar ephemera, have you come across anything about post-WWII California wines? My old radio shows (especially Suspense) feature ads for California wines (especially "Roma Wines") that make California wines sound less appealing than NY State wines. (One ad for Roma says their Sherry is "mouth-tingling." I think I'd rather have Thunderbird.) I tried to track down what happened to these post-WWII California wineries but I couldn't get anywhere. (I assume they were all swallowed by Gallo in the 60s.) The only evidence I could find is on old radio shows--no print ads or labels. I noticed your carry-out menus had the obligatory NY and then French imports.

HP, I've run across lots of wine ephemera, but I can't say I've paid much attention to it because I was too busy looking for items with a Polynesian/lounge flair. I'd be happy to take another look and let you know if I run across anything on Roma.

As for the dearth of info on these post-WWII wineries, bear in mind that prohibition pretty much wiped out the industry in California until it was repealed in '33, and then it took a long time for new vintners to get established and new lines of grapes to mature. I'd imagine that a lot of crappy wines came out in the interim, and that quite a few of these new wineries didn't make it or as you said, were bought out by larger operations.

"Nifty at 15"? Wow.

Excellent stuff though.

Yeah, that Zulu-Lulu is 4 or 5 different kinds of wrong, isn't she?

Oh, well. We only do the Dirndl stuff for the bloody foreigners so the beer prices stay low.

Ambience - what's that?! ;-)