The Golden Tiki
10 Oct 2022
Two in a night to finish off the planned part of October tiki road trip with visits to both Golden Tiki and Frankie’s.
It’s a Monday night and to be honest I’m still a little exhausted from running the Chicago marathon on Sunday (which was the main reason for my trip from Australia to the US) but I’ve only got one night here on the way home so let’s do it!
I started at Golden Tiki as they have a food menu but sadly at 8pm was a smaller version of it so kicked off with some pork meatballs and fries and started with a Painkiller.
Place was packed for a Monday night - I had to wait a while to grab a seat at the bar. The bar has really great decor although the poker machines at the bar were a trip (it is Vegas but I guess I wasn’t expecting it entirely like this - lots of bars in Australia have poker machines but they put them in a separate room, so I guess that’s what I thought I’d see). I couldn’t grab the iconic “clam shell” photo as this was moved to accommodate a band (yes on Monday night!). I’ve also not posted the photos of the excellent velvet paintings as they are a little rude and I didn’t want to have to flag this post!
The staff were friendly but busy so hard to chat to anyone except Jake on the door whilst I waited for my Uber. I did play a little poker at the bar but only dropped a $20 as I’m not really a gambler. Cashed out with $5 left just to see what the ticket looked like (it wasn’t really souvenir-able so I cashed it for the 5 spot).
Golden Tiki was also great but selfishly I’d prefer it a little less crowded.
Photo Gallery
Tiki Bar
The Golden Tiki
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
The Golden Tiki opened in Las Vegas' Chinatown on July 24, 2015. The man behind The Golden Tiki, Branden Powers, has been part of the nightclub scene in Las Vegas for some time now (he was Creative Director at the Hard Rock Hotel), but is himself a longtime lover of Tiki, having spent some of his youth DJing Exotica tunes at the Islands Restaurant in San Diego's Hanalei Hotel.
The Golden Tiki is in a large space, 4,000 square feet, and split into four different zones. The interior design and build out were done by Danny "Tiki Diablo" Gallardo. The bar has a thatched roof, and is topped by an animatronic talking tiki head, named Goldy, created by Erik "Irk" Hedman. A loveseat-sized artificial giant clam is popular for photos.
A flaming pu-pu platter is available on Friday and Saturday nights.
The greatest honor at The Golden Tiki is to have your head shrunken and enshrined in their glass case, wherein you can see many celebrities, Las Vegas personalities, and Tiki icons.