Established in 1938, making it a pre-tiki establishment.

Their bartender, Manuel Lopez, created the tikis for many area establishments including this one. Manuel practiced carving since @1959. He tended bar at the Pelican from 1944 through the 1970s.

One of his carvings, at the Rix Motel on Clearwater Beach, made it into the newspapers in 1966 when it was stolen.

This venue was known for its mascot pelican formed from driftwood and for its stuffed and fried shrimp.

The Pelican burned down in 1974. Among what was salvaged in the fire was the namesake driftwood, and the restaurant was rebuilt, but later closed -- and now this spot has been overtaken by condominiums.

Last B&W photo shows rebuilt entrance.

While open, they did have an extensive cocktail menu (see below) and issued a variety of pelican swizzles in different colors.

Opened Wednesday, September 14th, 2022.

The owners of Tigerlily restaurant in Ferndale converted a former office space in the building into a tiki-themed “speakeasy”-style bar called Mai Tiki.

The narrow, 900-square-foot room is accessible via a “semi-concealed” door on the side of Tigerlily’s dining room, which the restaurant describes as “a portal to an island getaway” with a wraparound mural, thatch canopy, and “island relics,” including gold skulls. Mai Tiki is also accessible via a rear door on the Troy Street side of the building.

In addition to their cocktails (see menu below), the spot has a food menu with small plates like crab rangoon, robata-grilled pineapple, pork belly bao, and fish tacos. The menu was developed by Tigerlily chef Chris Vasquez, a metro Detroit native who has worked at Maru Sushi and Nippon Sushi Bar who returned to Michigan following a stint as head sushi chef at Chicago’s acclaimed Momotaro.

When you book Mai Tiki you get the whole place to yourself! The room seats about 51 guests including 12 bar seats and has a capacity of 60 Guests.

Soft opening July 3-4th, 2024.

Founded as a speakeasy tiki bar with a generally nautical theme inside a larger restaurant called MacStack Tavern in Port Clinton, Ohio outside Sandusky.

Formerly located in a secret lounge above the Downtown Grill (2020-2024).

The Monkey's Paw closed their Downtown Grill location and re-opened at this new location in the basement of Pearl Passionate Cuisine & Cocktails (which closed June 23rd, 2024).

The Pearl venue became a new location called The Monkey's Paw Tropical Tapas on July 11th, 2024 with tapas dining upstairs and the Monkey's Paw Tiki Lounge downstairs.

Reservations must specifically choose which areas patrons wish to reserve (restaurant or lounge).

Opened April 13th, 2024.

Mary Oglesby and Paul Gilliam, who created and opened the Cameo cocktail bar in Midtown, are the co-owners of Mary's B.O.T.E.

The interior has a dark classic tiki feel with fish traps hanging from the ceiling above the bar, and a back-bar shelving unit stacked with booze and featuring what must represent many many hours of routering native style patterns.

Across from the bar and barstools are diner style booths lining the wall from front to back.

There is also a back patio decorated with pink and turquoise yard flamingos.

The Hilo Lagoon Hotel was built in 1971.

The 10 floor building was built overlooking the spring-fed Waiakea Lagoon and Park. The six acre site included lush landscaping, extensive fishponds filled with colorful carp, and a freshwater swimming pool.

The Tiki Garden Restaurant was located on the first level overlooking the carp ponds. It specialized in buffet meals. Decor included large murals and floor-to-ceiling Easter Island Moai heads.

NOTE: As of today (2024) this building has been converted to apartment housing.

September 26th, 2024 was their soft opening.

Lots of details in this bar, including a huge mosaic style Easter Island Moai mural behind the back bar.

It's dark and divey with black velvet paintings and carved tiki masks lit by hanging swag lamps.

Hosting live music acts.

Pele & volcano logo designed by Rarabird.

Long-time tikiphile, Dr. Shocker (and his wife, Rosie Raddish), is behind this venue, so its certain that the classic tiki cocktails will be on point.

This venue was opened in 1970 with the Ala Moana Hotel and was one of the Spencecliff family of restaurants.

It was painstakingly modeled to resemble a Maori meeting hall on the inside and was covered with all manner of carvings.

Spencecliff later passed this restaurant on to his former employee, Gordon Yoshida, who continued to run it until February of 2009.

In its time, it was run as a dinner theater and home to a number of full Hawaiian Revue dance teams throughout the years.

After its close, the contents were auctioned off or demolished and disposed of. Some of the better carvings found their way into the hands of collectors and a few are on display at La Mariana Sailing Club.

Opened in December 2024 in the basement under the historic Phoenix Saloon in New Braunfels, Texas.

The build-out was designed and carried out by The Boozy Doodler (Jason Straughan). Owners of the Phoenix Saloon had visited Jason's home bar, the Taboozy Lei, during Covid and had asked him if he could transform their basement into something similar.

The space incorporates lots of old school tiki elements and touches from Jason's own invention, like an animated ship in a bottle. Details include: Papua New Guinea carvings, a nautical section (with mermaid prow figure and windows looking out at the sea), tons of routered wood trim, bamboo, lauhala matting, hanging fish floats, cork floats hanging from strands of nautical rope, and much much more. The incredible attention to detail should satisfy even the pickiest of tikiphiles and is evidence that this was a true labor of love.

This Kahunaville was one location in a nationwide chain of restaurants.

It was located in the Rivertown Mall from @2002-2004.

Like the others in the chain, this restaurant featured a synchronized water fountain show, waterfalls, caves, talking idols, a sophisticated sound system, an arcade, and a variety of tropical drinks. Their eclectic food menu featured about 90 items, which included "Kahunaville-sized" sandwiches, salads and entrees with American, Mexican, Cajun and Asian influences.

The parent company of Kahunaville, Adventure Dining Inc., once operated nine nationwide locations, including homes in Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Michigan and Tampa. The Las Vegas, Nevada "Party Bar" (2001-2016) was their last holdout before the chain folded.

This type of corporate chain typifies what many tikiphiles dislike most about corporatizing the Tiki aesthetic -- bending the decor more towards a Chucky Cheese buildout (or perhaps Rainforest Cafe if one is being kind) with cheaply molded and cartoony fiberglass and plastic decorations in primary colors, dumbing down the cocktails of Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic into chemical-tasting slushy boat drinks (but served with "flair"), offering a big scattershot food menu in hopes of appealing to every American tourist palate, and supplying loud video games and animatronics to entertain the kids. For those that grew up with these, there is some nostalgia, but they were not terribly mourned by fans of traditional tiki bars and restaurants.

This second Nalu location opened in Rehoboth Beach on April 9th, 2019.

It tilts a bit more to the surf than the tiki spectrum of decor with surfboard tables and Hawaiian wave mural walls, but no carved tikis in evidence like the original location.

The food menu is much the same as the sister location. They have a self-described "Pacific island fusion" menu with pad thai, tacos, burgers, and poke bowls leading the way.

The cocktails are served in tiki style glassware.

The Royal Lanai opened @ 1962.

This site was previously occupied by the first Tropics restaurant (The World Famous Tropics at Waikiki) which was opened by Peaches & Tony Guerrero and ran from 1940 to at least as late as 1955, possibly later.

The upstairs portion was designated as a separate bar called "The Attic Bar".

This location was open at least as late as September of 1968.

It is interesting to note on their limited cocktail menu that they used Leilani brand as their house white rum. Beachbum Berry describes this as one of his favorite historical white rums for that time period. They also produced a very cool tiki-shaped bottle glorifier to set the bottles on that has become highly coveted over the years. See photos below...