Opened Friday, October 13th, 2023.

Friday the 13th was appropriate to open a "Tiki Hell" themed bar with lava floors and demon-themed barware.

The name is derived from Milton's epic poem and although the decor is a bit red-saturated and hellish, there are definitely tropical elements to be found as well such as thatching, ship's crates, burned wood, etc...

"Upon the beaches of the lake of fire, deep within the depths of the Abyss, sits a small bar."

However, this is also one of the new wave of tiki bars that try to sidestep cultural appropriation issues by not having any actual tikis or hula girl imagery in their bar. They have a large menu of cocktails derived from the list of classics originated by Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic, but many of them are riffs with hell-themed names.

The Hurricane was a hot pre-tiki era night club on the northwest corner of 49th & Broadway from about 1940 through 1944. It filled the second floor of the Brill Building, a historic landmark famous for nurturing the popular music industry from the 1950s into the 1970s; anyone who was anyone in the music industry at the time was seen there.

The name, Hurricane, was probably inspired by the 1937 film, starring Dorothy Lamour.

It was decorated with fake palm trees and other tropical flora and fauna.

Most notably, Duke Ellington headlined at the Hurricane in 1943. According to Ellington, it was at the Hurricane that night club audiences first began to be integrated.

The Hurricane was operated by lawyer David J. Wolper, but many speculated that he was actually the front man for the mob and that they actually ran the place.

After many conflicting reports towards the end, about whether the club would stay open or was simply closed for remodeling, the Hurricane did indeed close.

Meanwhile, another successful spot, Zanzibar, whose tropical/African theme welcomed both a black and white audience, was looking for a new spot. They had opened the previous year in a smaller venue and were looking to expand.

The Zanzibar owners paid more than $50,000 and apparently another $35,000 to redecorate the old Hurricane location in gold, beige and black and opened later in 1944 to instant success with headliners like Cab Calloway and other famous musicians who frequently squabbled over who would headline this new premier club spot.

Opened 2001.

This sad and (thankfully) short-lived attempt at modern-day tiki (so modern-day, they decided to leave out anything remotely tiki) was not built to attract the Polynesian Pop audience.

In 2004, they moved on to their next concept, and Star Bar moved in. Currently, as of 2021, this location is home to Sagaponack NYC, a seafood restaurant.

This Trader Vic's was a mainstay in the Savoy Hilton from April 3rd, 1958 onward, but was demolished in 1965 to make way for the General Motors building. At that time, the restaurant moved across the street to a location in the Plaza Hotel. Both Bob Fosse and Stanley Kubrick were regulars, and in 1964, Kubrick first discussed his idea for 2001: A Space Odyssey here.

This site was a relocation of the original New York Trader Vic's, which was in the Savoy Hilton.

When the Savoy Hilton was demolished in 1965 to make way for the General Motors building, the Trader Vic's moved here, to the Plaza Hotel.

This location opened August 22, 1965.

When Donald Trump bought the Plaza in 1989, he closed the Trader Vic's.

There was a 40-foot outrigger canoe on display here that was used by Marlon Brando in the movie "Mutiny on the Bounty."

Lanai was a very short-lived Polynesian restaurant -- it opened in 1961, and by 1962 had morphed into the legendary Hawaii Kai. It was above the Winter Garden Theatre in the Theater District north of Times Square. Lanai was a partnership between Joe Kipness (who went on to own the Hawaii Kai with other partners) and Monte Proser, who two decades earlier had opened his Monte Proser's Beachcomber in this same spot. The Lanai logo of sarong-clad woman holding a theatrical-meets-tiki mask to her face was used for some mugs at Hawaii Kai.

The Polynesian was an upscale modern restaurant in midtown Manhattan, near Times Square. It was located on the third floor of The Pod Hotel 42, and opened in May 2018. The space was sleek and airy, with more subtle nods to Polynesian art and culture. Seating dividers were made from sticks, clearly inspired by traditional Oceanic sailing maps; graphic repeating patterns on the floor and behind the bar appeared to be very-abstracted echoes of tapa or quilt designs of the Pacific. The dominant colors in the space were warm wood and ocean blue, and select pieces of Oceanic art were on display.

The restaurant was created by New York's Major Food Group, with help from bartender Brian Miller, who had been hosting regular tiki drink nights around New York for several years. Miller's menu included not just nods to drinks from the history of tiki bars, but incorporated nods to actual Polynesian history. The food menu was limited and tended toward the snack end, with some classic fare like Crab Rangoon.

Signature mugs by Tiki Diablo from this location were highly coveted.

The bar closed temporarily in 2020 as a consequence of COVID shutdowns and never re-opened.

Monte Proser was one of the first to lift Donn Beach's Don the Beachcomber concept, and he lifted the famous Zombie drink right along with it. Proser was largely responsible for introducing the Zombie to the east coast. He started with "Monte Proser's Zombie," a bar created for the New York World's Fair in 1939. Based on that success, he opened Monte Proser's Beachcomber at the end of that same year, December 26th, 1939, in a space above the Winter Garden Theatre in the Theater District north of Times Square (the same space would later hold Lanai, and then Hawaii Kai). The interiors were created by Clark Robinson.

Proser's chain of Beachcomber restaurants grew to include locations in Miami Beach, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, Baltimore, Maryland and Providence, Rhode Island. His love affair with the Beachcomber concept didn't last long... his attention was taken by his other, more famous New York nightclub, the Copacabana. By 1943, the location had become a new nightclub, Zanzibar (which moved the following year to the old Hurricane space).

Hawaii Kai was the grand dame of New York Polynesian restaurants. The location, over the historic Winter Garden Theatre, already had a place in Polynesian Pop history: it was the location of Monte Proser's Beachcomber, a Don the Beachcomber rip-off, in the early '40s.

The dramatic space opened initially as a partnership between Monte Proser and Joe Kipness as Lanai in 1961, but by November of 1962 it had morphed into Hawaii Kai with Joe Kipness now partnered with Art Schindler, who had owned the nearby Luau 400.

The dramatic interiors were created by Frederick Fox, a scenic designer for Broadway productions. The entry was at street level, and had lush greenery, waterfalls and capuchin monkeys. After receiving a lei greeting, visitors ascended a rattan staircase to the upper level, with three rooms:

The Okole Maluna Bar (Bottoms Up Bar) had a diorama of Diamond Head at Waikiki that constantly shifted from daytime to nighttime.

Adjacent to the bar was The Lounge of the Seven Pleasures -- this room had entertainment nightly, playing until 3 a.m.

The main dining room was where the nightly luau and Polynesian revue was held, variably called Hula Wei, Place of Meeting, or The Island Huts of Oahu. The space was large, with a stage, and thatch-covered booth "huts" along the edge of the room.

Hawaii Kai had a flair for flowery naming: beyond the colorful names for the rooms and of course the drinks, they were always coming up with new exotic-sounding titles for special giveaway items. The competition for tourist dollars was likely steep in Times Square, and in order to keep up there was a steady stream of creative bonus items one could acquire: A tiki teapot set titled "Ipo Aloha Lovers Tea Set", a skull mug titled "Goddess of Love", even a simple standard bucket mug became a "Royal Ali'i Goblet". Tiki lighters, lanterns, salt and pepper shakers, and of course good old tiki mugs: they couldn't give them away fast enough. Today the items are heavily collected, and often can be found still in the box they were sent home in.

Hawaii Kai's popularity waned, but it held on through the 1980s, and through the damage of a fire. It made appearances in a couple of Hollywood films (most famously a scene from Goodfellas takes place here). Hawaii Kai finally closed sometime during or shortly after 1989.

*NOTE: Cocktail menus below show that earlier drinkware included Spurlin/Beauce designed bowls and unmarked glassware but they later converted to Otagiri designed ceramic ware and marked glassware.

On June 23, 1937, the world-famous Hawaiian Room opened. This marks it as a pre-tiki venue although it produced its own tiki mug years later.

The Hawaiian Room was located in the Hotel Lexington (now the Radisson Lexington Hotel). Guests had a hula of a time sipping coconut willies and watching live hula performances. The space became synonymous with entertainer Arthur Godfrey, a well-known TV personality in the 1960s. He’d broadcast his radio show live from that space. The hotel's recently renovated Arthur Godfrey Suite pays homage to his legacy.

The Hawaiian room closed in 1966.

*NOTE that the brochure image shows full detailed recipe for the "Pineapple Paradise" which is only briefly described in menu: 4 small pineapples, 2 oz pineapple juice, 2 oz lime juice, 3 oz Demerara rum, 2 oz light Puerto Rican rum, 2 oz peach brandy, 2 teaspoons fine sugar. Use pineapple shells as containers for this drink. Cut the edges off of pineapples about 1 1/2 inches down, then cut a small notch in the top through which you can insert a straw. Scoop out the interior leaving a shell about 1/4 inch thick. In a shaker put pineapple juice, lime juice, Demerara rum, Puerto Rican rum, peach brandy, and sugar. Add crushed ice and shake. Pour into pineapples, replace pineapple tops, and insert a straw in notches.

Circa 1940s to 1950s.

This pre-tiki bar and nightclub in the midst of "The Street" in New York was decked out in South Pacific style with bamboo and painted island murals, but the big draw were the three shows nightly of burlesque dancers.

Restaurant in a small town in New York state, next to a driving range.