Bob's Java Jive
Posted by: 
WitzEnd
N 47° 13.909 W 122° 27.868
10T E 540537 N 5231064
It's accomplishment enough for an old coffee pot-shaped building to still be standing, let alone serving cups of Joe. Bob's Java Jive is one such survivor, weathering gyrations that might crack a lesser coffee pot-shaped building.
Waymark Code: WMZN
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 09/07/2005
Views: 95
Built in 1927 as the Coffee Pot Restaurant by a Tacoma veterinarian, Otis G. Button, it was designed by local artist/promoter Bert Smyser, owner of a commercial display business. The concrete coffee pot stood 25 ft. high, and was 30 ft. in diameter.
The big pot operated as a food drive-thru at one point, and a speakeasy. As the city of Tacoma expanded, and waves of development swept outward, the Coffee Pot thrived while other eclectic buildings succumbed.
In 1955, Bob and Lylabell Radonich bought the place. Lylabell concocted the name, "Java Jive," from a lyric in a popular Ink Spots song (the phrase "Java Jive" had been around at least since the 1930s).
Bob transformed the big coffee pot interior to cater to new audiences as a music club. In the 1960s, when the instrumental surf band The Ventures became a national sensation, they were fresh from years as a lowly paid house act in The Java Jive.
Bob made the Jive loosely Polynesian-themed, with a Jungle Room and two chimpanzees living there -- "Java" and "Jive." The chimps banged on a drum kit while Bob and Lylabell's son played the organ.
Later mutations of the Java Jive ventured into karaoke; it also operated as a go-go bar.
Over the decades, that section of Tacoma became more desolate and a little run down. The bar somehow avoided demolition until the city realized it was a vital cultural landmark worth preserving. It narrowly escaped a fire in 1998.</p