I took a big walk after dinner, walked up some really steep hills, because I wanted to go see one of my favorite landmarks in San Francisco: the Fairmont Hotel. I don’t know if the Fairmont is the fanciest hotel in San Francisco, but it must be right at the top. It survived the 1906 earthquake, and hosted all kinds of celebrities and entertainers in the Venetian room and the Grand ballroom in the 1940s. There’s a great photo of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys playing at the Fairmont in 1945, and I suspect it was in the Grand Ballroom. They also recorded some radio transcriptions there in 1945 (correct me if I’m wrong, but these weren’t the Tiffany transcriptions; the ones they recorded here were a different set of radio transcriptions).
Perhaps best of all, there is one of the most historic tiki bars in the entire country in the basement: the Tonga room. Originally built in the 1930s, this place defies description, and I’m so happy that it’s still there. There is a lagoon in the middle of the bar on which a boat sails carrying a Hawaiian band, and every fifteen minutes artificial rain comes down from the ceiling onto the lagoon. Magical. Everything here is blisteringly expensive, of course, but the cool factor is off the charts.
See more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
