Proud patrons of a watering hole,
frozen in ’60s funk, will raise their mugs to the place
where everyone knows their names

By Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin

The first description of Anna Bannana's to appear, a week after the Moiliili bar opened in the summer of 1969, said the "decor was simple but groovy with Indian tapestries on the walls and fiberglass table . . ."

The tapestries are gone -- probably; it's hard to see into some of the corners, or they've been plastered over with posters from the '70s -- but the tables are still holding up after 28 years of thumping beer mugs, heated arguments, soulful music, steaming pizzas and flaming nachos, cool kisses, philosophical dialectic, sleeping faces, university homework and the psychic baggage of being a time tunnel directly into the 1960s.

What's new?

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
"My theory in life is that you ride the waves as long as
they're good for you, and where they go wrong, you get off,"
says owner Gary Budlong. "The wave is still rolling for Anna's."

---

"Not much," says owner Gary Budlong, looking around. "Gosh, those lamps up there are original. They're hand-blown glass -- I got 'em at India Imports 'cause they were so cool. Still work great."

Randy Koon, a musician and carpenter -- his calloused hands seem large around a Red Stripe beer bottle -- has been visiting Anna's for 21 years. "And

it's exactly the same. In fact, I just got back after spending a few years on the Big Island, and it was like I never left. The same stuff is on the walls, the same guys are sitting on the stools."

"Look, over there at that wall by the dart lanes," Budlong said. "People are peeling off the 1980s posters to check out the 1960s posters. That wall is in its fifth printing."

Sure enough, there's a little poster-archaeology going on. It's not just the trappings that are '60s, mind you, it's attitude. Anna Bannana's exudes a laid-back, please-yourself ambience that isn't Sexy-'70s, Evil-'80s or Numb-'90s. That leaves the '60s. Groovy.

Anna Bannana's continued existence puzzles even Budlong, who attempts to explain it in financial terms -- "Been in business so long the overhead is low, hard drinks have a higher margin than beer or wine, the fixtures are amortized, my wife Peggy does the managing" yadda yadda yadda.

Beginning tonight Anna's hosts a weeklong anniversary celebration that celebrates the patrons and good times, rather than the bar itself.

Events include prizes for hats, a motorcycle show, a potluck picnic on July 4, a tie-dying event, and, for one day only, the Return of the Pineapple-Peanut Butter Pizza on July 7.

"We used to serve all sorts of pizzas," shrugs Budlong. "My background was as a manager at Shakey's, so pizza was what I knew." He'd borrowed $25,000 from relatives to get the building lease, and named it after a sing-song litany he heard from a child. OK, so he misspelled "bananas." It was his place, he'd spell the name any way he wanted, Budlong said at the time.

His subsequent endeavor, the kayaking company Go Bananas, is spelled correctly, you notice. "I have never in my life planned for the long-range," stoutly insisted Budlong. "My theory in life is that you ride the waves as long as they're good for you, and where they go wrong, you get off. The wave is still rolling for Anna's."

The exterior has a serious case of ivy, which Budlong planted to cover stucco placed by the building's owner. Sometime in the early '80s, the bar acquired the lease to the upstairs room, which houses musical entertainment.

Overall, the building is decorated with an eclectic bunch of stuff that struck Budlong as cool. "These dinged surfboards I found abandoned while out kayaking," says he. "The high chairs are from The Willows. The driftwood is from Kailua Beach. That tuba is from the Blue Goose -- you remember the Blue Goose? -- and the license plates got started when a lady from Colorado left us one to remember her by."

That was the beginning of dozens of license plates. Budlong has never counted them -- "That's too much like homework." There's also a bicycle, a military practice bomb that says, unsurprisingly, GET BOMBED!, a Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce sign, an illuminated chandelier that features a Budweiser beer train circling endlessly clockwise, and a wall full of faded snapshots, all of which seem to have caught the subject in the act of blinking.

The lighting is set at that level at which all women look good, and all men look robust. TGI Friday's, eat your heart out.

None of this ancient history answers the modern question: Why, in a go-go era of trendy bars and one-idea restaurants, does a cranky, dark, funky neighborhood watering hole like this live on?

We asked some of the folks there last week. Curiously, all remembered exactly how long they've been going to Anna's, although the experience of having a beer or two caused a couple to forget their last names.

Jim and Dan were a couple of preppy-looking chaps who were having a vaguely lawyerly debate when we barged in on their table. "We've been coming here once a week for 13 years," said Jim. "It's a regular part of my schedule."

"Good tunes on the CD jukebox," said Dan. "And the waitresses are all friendly."

"And the patrons are all good-looking," said Jim.

"It's important just to unwind after a week of bull(stuff); just come, sit and talk. Keeps you healthy," said Jim. "There aren't that many places where you can just sit and have a beer and talk."

"What I like about Anna's is that there's no bull. No airs," Koon said. "You know everyone else. Or if you're new, you're welcome, and that makes it comfortable. It's not like other bars. It's not a meat rack. It's not a pick-up joint. It's low-key. Not pretend. And the beer prices are fairly cheap.

"I mean, look at this place. Essentially, it's like having a beer in someone's garage . . . It's like family."

Rodney Lewis, a strapping security guard, was only in Anna's for the second time. "I'm coming back," he said. "It's casual and down-home, a real workingman's bar. I'm from Key West, Fla., and it reminds me of the conch bars there."

Gloria Redd, a hospital worker, has been warming stools in Anna Bannana's for 18 years. "It's funny; coming here is NOT like going to a bar," she said. "It's a comfortable place where you can have a few cold ones, have a good time and un-stress. There's always someone to talk to."

"It's the only corner bar left in Honolulu," said Chuck Barwig, a newspaper zone manager. He's been coming to Anna Bannana's for seven years, and punctuates his talk with cigarette smoke that roils out of him like outboard-engine exhaust. "EVERY-one knows EVERY-one, and ANY-one can come in. So, it's the people."

Jesse I-Ain't-Got-a-Last-Name, a carpenter who braids his long beard like Pippi Longstocking, giggles and says, "Hey! I'm here to chase women!"

"Catch any?" says Barwig.

"Nah. I've been coming here for 18 years, but I haven't had a drink for six or seven years, and the women don't look the same. When I started coming here it was an outlaw biker bar. Now I'm a piece of the furniture around here, part of the living room, man."

It's interesting how many of these people used the metaphors of family and home to describe the appeal of Anna Bannana's. People are social animals, after all, and it's useful to have a place to interact with people that isn't home, and isn't work -- a level playing field for your peer group, where all that matters is ideas and friendship.

And it helps that the place never changes. It's like a church, or a cathedral. It's a link to a simpler time, the 1960s.

But what was it they used to say in the '60s?

Oh yeah. Don't trust anyone over 30.

Anna Bannana's will be 30 in two years. That will be the millennium, all right.