Waikiki Wine Club was a 1960’s bar in the cellar of what is now Wesley Barrell furniture shop in Queens Circus, Montpellier. It closed around 1970. The cellar bar was opened by Mike Luckman in about 1958. It was painted black. The juke-box played jazz with a selection of the popular hits of the day. The Cheltenham Vespa Club made it their base. It had some famous visitors including Little Richard, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. Brian Jones, later of the Rolling Stones, was a regular at the Waikiki Wine Club.
Gloucestershire Echo, 20th March 2006 – Waikiki was oasis. by Deborah Shannon. The Waikiki was the place to be in Cheltenham in the 1960’s. Anybody who was anybody was there, not least star-in-the-making Brian Jones. It drew Cheltenham’s youth like a magnet. It was exciting, new and they had never seen the like before. They gravitated there for the music, formed secret societies and had poetry readings. They were bursting with expression – early environmentalists led one of the secret societies the Anti-sede Witherers League. And the Waikiki Wine Club made a few waves when it burst onto Cheltenham’s social scene. There were complaints about the noise from nearby residents.
The Waikiki Wine Club was in the cellar of what is now Wesley Barrell furniture shop in Queens Circus, Montpellier. Keith Glover used to work in the kitchen at the Bar B Q above. He said: “Everybody focused on it. It was a meeting place for so many diverse types of people. The Ladies’ college banned its girls from coming in but Dean Close school pupils were allowed in.”
The Waikiki closed around 1970 – but its following remained faithful and 36 years on they converged to reminisce at Cheltenham Civil Service Club. The reunion was the idea of former manager Tony Stokes. Tragically, Mr Stokes died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 69 on 31st January. There was no question in his wife Joanna’s mind about the reunion. “Tony was so pleased and excited about it, I had to carry on,” she said. Mrs Stokes said the cellar bar was opened by Mike Luckman in about 1958 and Cheltenham Vespa Club made it their base. “They were proud of the fact that it was painted black,” she said.
Mr Glover helped revamp the bar and remembers there was even a coffin. Under Mr Luckman, manager Roger Vaughan-Spruce converted the area on a south sea island theme. Mike Tupper bought the business in 1960. Mr Stokes was manager of both the upstairs and downstairs venues. Mrs Stokes, 64, said: “It was a super place. There were one-armed bandits but, equally, there were four or five chess boards. It was almost like a youth club. We drank coffee and did a lot of talking. The Waikiki was a wine bar. The juke-box played Jazz and a good smattering of popular music of the day.”
“All sorts of people dropped in – the likes of Acker Bilk and Mac White.”, said Mrs Stokes. Other visitors included Little Richard, Trucker Brookes, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee. Another star waiting in the Waikiki wings was Brian Jones and who could have believed this mild-mannered teenager would become the Rolling Stone portrayed as the wild man of rock? Mrs Stokes and her friend used to give him a lift from the end of his street, Hatherley Road, to another popular meeting place, Filby’s Basement. “Brian was not a forceful character. He was a quiet, unassuming young man.” Both Mrs Stokes and Mr Glover remember him telling them one Saturday night that he was going to to London to form a band.” Mr Glover said: Brian was a regular customer. He would sit upstairs practising his music. The Waikiki was an oasis for all sorts of people.”
Gloucestershire Echo, 5th June 2006 – ‘Whale of a time had at Waikiki’: Risque is how Chris Herridge remembers Cheltenham’s Waikiki Club. The Echo article on the club in Montpellier sent her mind back to those heady times. She writes: “After almost 30 years in America, I’ve never forgotten that special place. Your article, sent to me by my brother, brought back vivid memories.”
“The upstairs coffee bar was where I spent my middle teens, hanging out in a booth, embracing everything that Bob Dylan stood for and waiting until I was old enough to go downstairs to the wine bar. It was there I met my husband. By the standards of the day, the Waikiki was risque, which is why we liked it. The Black Tulip and Geraldine’s coffee bars, Promenade hangouts, were boring by comparison. We had jazz, they didn’t. We had a bar, they didn’t. We had character. Some of the business ventures of one or two of the regulars were on the other side of legal. Did we find this vicariously exciting? Of course.”
“The managr Tony Stokes was a father figure and took care of we younger ones. Who do I remember? Bob and Amanda Pandy, Duncan, who played inspired piano and travelled with his dog. Then there was Adam Diment, who lived in London but spent weekends at the Waikiki and went on to write novel. The Dolly Dolly Spy was the first.