Manufacturer: Sterling China
User Name: Don the Beachcomber, Sahara Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
Date of plate, 1964
Notes: Known as the founding father of Tiki restaurants, Don the Beachcomber was born Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt in Limestone County, Texas in 1907. In 1926, Gantt left Texas and traveled around the world to the South Pacific and Carribean, eventually moving to Hollywood, California in the 1930s. Gantt opened "Don's Beachcomber" bar in 1934, featuring a variety of "exotic dishes" that were actually standard Cantonese-style dishes, but relatively unknown in the United States at that time. After years of being called Don the Beachcomber because of his original restaurant, Gantt legally changed his name to "Donn Beach."
At the end of World War II, Beach settled in Waikiki, Hawaii, where he opened his second Polynesian Village & Tiki Bar. Tiki restaurants enjoyed a tremendous burst of popularity in the 1940s and 1950s, and there were several Don the Beachcomber restaurants and spin-off Tiki restaurants across the country. Victor J. Bergeron opened a competing version called Trader Vic's in the late 1930s in the San Francisco Bay Area. Like most fads, the Tiki restaurant fell out of favor, and the original Don the Beachcomber restaurants are no longer in existence. (Source: Wikipedia)
The logos used by the restaurants varied by location and over the years, but the logo shown below on the Sahara Hotel & Casino menu matches the logo used on this unmarked compote. In 1962, a Don the Beachcomber restaurant opened in the Sahara and was a top attraction for hotel guests, as well as celebrities.
White body with black rim border, topmarked with Don the Beachcomber logo, consisting of a bearded man wearing a hat on which sits a bird.
Manufacturer and plate contributed by brywil1970