Tiki Bars
Sam's By The Sea - Awase, Okinawa
Awase, Okinawa, Japan
Sam's By The Sea is owned by three brothers, Mark, Wyatt and Alan Payne. The trio moved to Okinawa from their original home in Hawaii when their father Ray's employer, Coca-Cola, relocated the family there. It opened in either 1970 or 1973.
Sam's By The Sea is located in an old yacht club, and still has the club's original bar. The restaurant resembles the interior of an old ship, and a long canoe is suspended over the dining room. A large Ku carving serves as a sign out front, and there is at least one big Papua New Guinea carving.
The restaurant has been a regular destination for American servicemen stationed in Okinawa for decades. It is a Teppanyaki-style restaurant. The female waitstaff are dressed in sailor outfits. Drinks are served in souvenir mugs.
There are seven restaurants in the Sam's chain in Okinawa; all are nautical, and four (including this one) have strong tiki/Polynesian elements. The other three tiki locations are Sam's By The Sea in Gushi/Naha, Sam's Maui in Kumoji and Sam's Maui on Kokusai street.
Tiki Bar Sargans
Sargans, Switzerland (Closed)
Tiki Bar Sargans is located in a small mountain town in the Swiss Alps, east of Zurich, and very near to Austria and Lichtenstein. It was opened on July 13, 2006 by Urs Schumacher. The most prominent feature is a boat that has been turned into a large table for casual bar seating. The furniture is mostly rattan seating, and there are a few small and large tikis on the premises.
Closed @April 16th, 2021.
Tiki Bar - Moscow
Tsentralnyy administrativnyy okrug, Moskva, Russia (Closed)
Tiki Bar, on the northwest side of Moscow, opened in January or February of 2008. It occupied a spacious building, with several rooms featuring painted beach scenes, life-size boats, and some large tiki carvings. The restaurant menu was fairly extensive, and included an unusual variety of international fare, with everything from Italian to Indian to Mexican. A large menu of tropical cocktails was available.
Appears to have have closed @ March 2024.
Kukui - Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom (Closed)
Kukui was a modern tiki nightclub in Oxford, England, opened in 2008. Being a nightclub in a college town, its target audience was a young crowd, and was set up for music and dancing rather than lounging and conversing.
To give one example, they invited controversy at their first ever Halloween party in 2008, when an online listing promised “one of the naughtiest nights of the year” with “KY Jelly wrestling — naked” and “fetish snake shows involving a 12ft albino python”.
Capacity was set for 800 persons.
The space was an unusually successful melding of sleek, modern lines with Polynesian Pop. This same combination has been attempted many times before, and usually lands with a thud; in the hands of interior design firm CheekyTiki and graphic designer TikiRacer (responsible for the interior and graphics for Mahiki in London), the result was beautifully proportioned and worked well.
It was divided into six distinct areas, including the private blue-domed Castaway Room, seating 35 and sealed off from the main space by a 4m tropical fish tank. Alternatively, you could book the Californian Room, with a 15m tropical rainforest wall screen.
'Hula Hula Girls' and 'Honolulu Hunks' served the keenly priced cocktails, designed for sharing.
Kukui closed in May 2011.
A second Kukui location opened in Bournemouth in 2010 and then closed 6th February 2012, re-opened as Lola Lo Bournemouth on the 9th February 2012, before closing once more in July 2014 only to be re-opened as a non-tiki themed establishment afterwards.
Frankie's Tiki Room
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Frankie's Tiki Room opened December 4th, 2008.
It is open 24 hours a day, every day. The basis is a traditional Polynesian Pop environment, with beautiful tapa cloth and intricate carvings, with an unusual overlay of crass nods to Las Vegas hedonism.
Interior decor by Bamboo Ben. They also feature both house cocktails and traditional tiki cocktails. Unique signature tiki mugs made by Tiki Farm for purchase.
They do allow smoking inside premises, so non-smokers beware.
Frankie's published a cocktail book, Liquid Vacation, in 2013, if you want to make their cocktails at home.
In December 2022, Ken Ruzic, Big Toe (Tom Laura), and Doug Horne painted a mural around the curved front entrance, helping to celebrate Frankie's 14th Anniversary Celebration.
The Tiki Terrace - Des Plaines
Des Plaines, Illinois, United States
The Tiki Terrace is a rare treat: a modern-day Polynesian restaurant with a floor show. This second location opened in April 2008; the original location was in nearby Prospect Heights.
This new location is much larger, and the decor is even more elaborate than before. The walls are lined with tapa cloth, lauhala and bamboo, and many massive moai guard the perimeter of the room. The dining room seats 90 in a number of cozy booths separated by bamboo and tall, carved tiki poles.
The restaurant is owned and operated by the Zuziak family, with traditional floor shows performed each weekend by its sister company, Barefoot Hawaiian productions.
Charleston Antique Mall
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
The Charleston Antique Mall has over 15,000 square feet of antiques and collectibles. One booth at the mall, run by Tiki Lee, was dedicated entirely to tiki, and offered a mix of modern and vintage tiki collectibles, especially mugs, but moved in October 2013 to a new antique mall, Main Street America, at 1400 S. Main St. and is currently still there as of 2022 (although the name of the mall has changed to Main Street Peddler's Antique Mall). Tiki Lee's Tiki Shop also has an online presence at https://tikileestikishop.bigcartel.com/
The Charleston Antique Mall was known as the Red Rooster Antique Mall until it was renamed in 2007. (A separate store that retains the name "Red Rooster" is right next door.) Getting to the antique mall can be a little challenging, as it sits right between the freeway and the railroad tracks, but once you have driving directions it's pretty easy to find.
The Tropics - Dayton
Dayton, Ohio, United States (Closed)
The Tropics opened November 18, 1954. At one point it suffered a fire which gutted the interior. It was re-opened soon afterward.
At some point it was known as Georgie Rudin's Tropics -- at least as early as 1960 when Barney West was contracted to carve 4 large tikis for the establishment.
Cantonese and American food was served, and tropical drinks were served in tiki mugs. It was well-known as a live music venue.
The restaurant closed in 1988. A wrecking crew took down the structure later in 1994.
The Bamboo Grove of Westwood
Seattle, Washington, United States (Closed)
The Bamboo Grove of Westwood is the home of Tiki Artist Dawn Frazier, also known as Sophista-Tiki. It was a single-apartment vacation rental for a time, from about 2008-2016.
It is located in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle. The unit is filled with vintage midcentury furnishings including a rattan couch, and has a built-in bar and tiki mural. The unit has a full kitchen, wireless internet, off-street parking and a private bamboo garden. Two twin beds can be pushed together to make one king-size bed, and a third person can be accommodated on a fold-away bed.
Since about 2016, Dawn no longer makes The Bamboo Grove available for rent, and today it is just her private residence. It is still as spectacular as ever and Dawn is continually making improvements and additions.
Paradise Club
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Paradise Club (or Club Paradise, depending on which sign you read) has been under the same ownership since about 1991. It has gone through at least two name changes since its opening in 1954, when it was first known as Gene Kamp's Island Home. For a while it was known as Gracie Dee's Sneaky Tiki.
Lauhala matting is used throughout (and the bar appears to still have its original ceiling treatment) but the tiki/tropical vibe has been toned down over the years.
Drinks, once selected from the single tropical drink menu on the premises, are served in tiki mugs. They are known for their original, called the "Banana Spider".
The bar reportedly has a bit of a dive bar feel, and caters to the area's robust Polish population.
Martell's Tiki Bar
Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, United States
Fred Martell opened the bar circa 1962 or shortly before, when there were no raw bars or multiple restaurants at the beach the way there are today. Then, it was known as Martell's Sea Breeze Club.
Dave Bassinder bought the place in the 1980s, and set to work transforming and expanding the operation.
Martell's Tiki Bar is a prime example of the confusion that has arisen between midcentury Polynesian Pop and muddled, any-tropical-will-do, anything-with-thatch-is-tiki "Tiki Bars."
This is the latter -- a bar focused on steel drums, Jimmy Buffett and Corona -- and the WRONG BODY OF WATER. While Caribbean influences have always been present in Polynesian Pop (rum, calypso), this is completely missing the mark. There is little or no tiki to be had here.
It's sad that Martell's owns "tikibar.com". They're completely within their rights, but... ugh.
Polynesia Supper Club
Waupaca, Wisconsin, United States (Closed)
Polynesia Supper Club had a large tiki on its sign, exterior tiki torches, and included a bar, restaurant and motel.
The exact location of this restaurant is a bit ambiguous -- the address of "Hwys 22 & 54" was probably specific when this restaurant was operating, but today these highways appear to overlap.
This location appears to have undergone a couple of name changes, possibly later called the Outrigger. Apparently burned down in 1985.