An Obituary
Kon-Tiki Ports opened August 6, 1962 inside the Sheraton-Chicago at 505 North Michigan Avenue — a building that had started life in the 1920s as the Medinah Athletic Club, a private Shriners’ clubhouse.
It was the Chicago entry in Stephen Crane’s empire — the Hollywood restaurateur who had launched the Luau in Beverly Hills, then cut a deal with Sheraton in 1958 specifically to compete with Hilton’s Trader Vic’s expansion. The Crane innovation was the multi-room concept: each Kon-Tiki Ports broke the restaurant into themed rooms named after Pacific ports of call. Chicago had eight — Saigon, Singapore, Papeete, Macao, Tama, Lanai, the Ship’s Deck, and a Tempura Bar. The Papeete room had two waterfalls, a canoe, and tiki gods carved from tree trunks by an ex-army captain. The bartender Popo Galsini served Scorpions, Zombies, Dr. Wong of Tahiti, and a drink called the Tropical Itch.
Stephen Crane died in February 1985. The Sheraton closed for renovations a year later and never reopened under that name. When the building came back in 1990 it was the InterContinental.
A single lava-rock wall from the original restaurant is still embedded in the exterior today.
