Tiki Bars
Caddy's John's Pass - A.K.A. The Hut Bar & Grill
Madeira Beach, Florida, United States
Located along the Historic John's Pass Boardwalk, Caddy's /The Hut Bar & Grill is known as a live music venue with great waterfront views. It was also attached to Skulley's Seafood Restaurant for many years before COVID shutdowns forced a closure and sale to Caddy's.
The Hut has a 15' tall carnival style pass-through tiki head entrance in front which opens to an outside breezeway where you can see a large house-like structure painted brick red with lime green trim -- matching the adjacent restaurant. The interior is a very large hall with some floor-to-ceiling tiki columns.
There is a wood-beamed tin ceiling. Flat screen TVs surround the room just below the ceiling, and along with the beer signs, you quickly realize that despite the exterior this is going to be more of a Florida style surf shack place than a traditional mid-century inspired tiki bar.
They do have some cartoony large molded tiki figures holding bottles but otherwise the decor is typical beer hall with some beach-style surfboard signs and made in Indonesia tiki masks thrown into the mix.
Along the boardwalk in back, you can see the entire top of The Hut's roof is thatched, which is an impressive amount of thatching.
They also have a 70 foot waterfront dock, which extends out into John's Pass for outdoor dining. Customers say it's not uncommon to see dolphins there.
- NOTE: The Hut Bar & Grill was forced to close in the wake of COVID shutdowns. In July 2021, William Karns Enterprises Inc. (headed by Bill Karns, who works with the Caddy’s Restaurant Group) purchased two restaurants along the John’s Pass boardwalk, including the shuttered Sculley’s Waterfront Restaurant and The Hut Bar & Grill from Dag Bros Inc. in a $5 million deal. The Hut Bar & Grill has re-opened under the Caddy's banner as of 2022 with seemingly few visible changes to the location...although presumably the food and beverages have fallen in line with the other locations in the Caddy's chain.
Holo Wai Miniature Golf Course
Orange, California, United States (Closed)
Les Valentine's large Holo Wai Miniature golf course (next to Holy Family Cathedral) lasted from sometime in the 1960s until the late 1970s or early 1980s. It was apparently wiped out to make room for a freeway exchange.
Adjacent to Holo Wai was the A-frame Chinese restaurant, Kim's, at 574 South Glassell. Both Kim's and Holo Wai appear together in early advertising on matchbooks and other ads. Kim's apparently was re-christened as Yen Ching's in 1979 and stayed in business until New Year's Eve 2018. The restaurant was bought by a national senior living company that plans on tearing the restaurant down and building a 35-room permanent memory care facility.
Burnt Ends Tiki Bar - at Dr. BBQ Restaurant
St. Petersburg, Florida, United States (Closed)
Burnt Ends opened in March 2021, above the Dr. BBQ Restaurant, located in the EDGE District of St. Petersburg.
Frank Simontics, known as the Tiki Rancher, was called on to blend classic tiki design with Dr. BBQ’s smokehouse roots in the second-floor bar. Design elements included charred end cuts of wood with red backlighting, and simulating glowing embers. There was also a thatch and bamboo awning and an 8-foot moai-like figure of Ray “Dr. BBQ” Lampe greeting guests at street level.
Closed December 2022. Though quite popular, the restaurant was only leasing the space and the owners were offered a deal to sell the property which they could not turn down.
Beachcomber Cocktail Lounge - at the Bonnie Oaks Lodge and Bungalows
Fairlee, Vermont, United States (Closed)
The Avery family operated three very different types of Vermont Inns. They owned a country inn near Dartmouth College in Norwich, a downtown hotel near the state capital in Montpelier and Bonnie Oaks Lodge and Bungalows in Fairlee, Vermont (a television Newhartish setting with a population then of about 600).
The lodge was located on Lake Morey.
The season was from mid June to mid October.
It's unclear when the cocktail lounge was added but it was open through at least the early 70s.
Isla Nu-Bar - at Universal Studios Hollywood Theme Park
Universal City, California, United States
Isla Nu-Bar is a walk-up bar located on the Lower Lot of Universal Studios Hollywood. It opened in summer of 2019.
The name is a play on words -- "Isla Nublar" is a fictional island that serves as a major setting in the first Jurassic Park novel and its film adaptations.
This bar was part of the newly renovated and imagined Jurassic World The Ride section of the park and features machine-blended slushy drinks as well as shaken cocktails -- all served in plastic take-home souvenir tiki mugs.
Twisted Tiki
Santa Ana, California, United States
Opened in 2019.
This small tiki bar is located behind a nondescript sliding bamboo door and curtain inside the McFadden Public Market -- sort of a speakeasy vibe. It probably can hold about 30 people.
Among the interior decorations is a large octopus chandelier on the ceiling (created by David Outline of Outl1n3 Island), fish floats, ukuleles, tiki masks, palm & monstera leaf wallpaper, and lots of bamboo. Dimly lit with lots of purple and blue and red mood lighting.
Word on the street is their drinks are well made and dialed in to what the tiki crowd likes also.
Molokai Apartments
Seattle, Washington, United States
This otherwise normal-looking complex has a great tiki mask sign in front and is marked "Molokai".
Trader Vic's - at The Benjamin Franklin Hotel - Seattle
Seattle, Washington, United States (Closed)
*1948-1960 as The Outrigger & 1960-1969 as Trader Vic's at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel.
This location at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in Seattle was the second Trader Vic's, after the Oakland location. It was located at 1980 5th Avenue.
It opened in 1948 and originally it was called The Outrigger (a sub-chain within the Trader Vic's chain that lasted several years) but the name changed in 1960 to just Trader Vic's. This location stayed open until it moved its Seattle branch to the nearby brand new south cylindrical tower of the Washington Plaza Hotel (now the Westin) in 1969. The Benjamin Franklin Hotel was demolished later on 07/1980 to make way for the matching north cylindrical tower of the Washington Plaza (Westin).
The Trader Vic's at the Washington Plaza Hotel (Westin) closed in June 1991.
The Exotic Tiki Lounge - at the Mirimar East Hotel
Fort Walton Beach, Florida, United States (Closed)
Operated in the early 1960s.
Postcards list the location for the Mirimar only as downtown on Highway 98. It appears to have been at the site of the present-day Suites at Marina Bay.
Tiki Apartments - Seattle
Seattle, Washington, United States (Closed)
The Tiki Apartments were an example of dingbats -- boxy apartments, usually supported by stilts, with open stalls below for parking. (Their name is likely to have been coined by architect Francis Ventre while he was lecturing at UCLA in the early '70s.) Thousands of the inexpensive 16-unit structures were built in the late '50s and early '60s to accommodate the huge number of people moving to the West Coast. Dingbats are being demolished by the dozen to make way for multi-story complexes with underground parking, so they are doubly ephemeral when paired with a tiki theme and tiki imagery.
Other than the sign, there doesn't appear to have been any other tikis or tiki features about this property.
Permits were issued for demolition in 2019 to build a 6-story, 56-unit new complex called Lake City Apartments.
Hale Kai -- at the Brant Inn
Burlington, Ontario, Canada (Closed)
The Hale Kai (House by the Sea) operated during the 1960s and was located at the Brant Inn in Burlington, Ontario. John Murray Anderson was the owner and director.
The original Brant Hotel opened in 1900 and burned to the ground in 1925. It was reconstructed that same year. Anderson and his partners, Kendall and Cec Roberts, purchased the property in 1939. Anderson became sole owner in 1954, having bought out the others.
Anderson is credited with being the first to bring big bands and floor shows into Canada and specifically with getting the popular Sky Club, which extended out over Lake Ontario, built at the Inn. There was Sophie Tucker, Victor Borge, Lena Horne, Louis “Satchmo” armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Liberace. And the big American bands came through — Goodman, Les Brown and his band of renown, and Stan Kenton, who packed 1,600 people into the place.
Poor health led Anderson to sell the Inn in 1964 to a firm called the International Atlas Development and Exploration Ltd.
In 1968, the decision was made by the owners of the Inn to close the entertainment landmark following the New Year’s Eve celebration. Demolition took place in 1969.
A commemorative plaque marks where the Inn once stood, located at the western end of Spencer Smith Park close to Maple Avenue.
*Today not much is known about the Hale Kai. Focus seems to be on the 1940s and 50s which are considered the high point of the Brant Inn. So, the Hale Kai may have only been around for a very brief time in the 1960s.
Tahiti Motel - Wildwood Crest
Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, United States (Closed)
The Tahiti Motel was opened in 1963. Its original owner was Robert Gerhardt Jr.
It is commonly referred to as being a part of the Doo Wop style of architecture, named after the popular music of its time, but this style is also referred to as Googie architecture in California and other parts of the country.
The Tahiti Motel was demolished in December of 2004.
It appears the letters of its sign were saved and displayed (at least at some point) at the nearby Tangiers Hotel which is also from the same era and has an A-frame out front that used to be a coffee shop but is now their office.