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.

The restaurant has a large, full-color King Kamehameha statue out front. The dining room has a long canoe hanging over the diners' heads. The ceiling is painted an unfortunate white, but the walls are covered with elaborate Papua New Guinea-style carvings. The restaurant serves steak and seafood.

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 Awase, Sam's Maui in Kumoji and Sam's Maui on Kokusai street.

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.

The Tropics was opened in 1950 by Vince Schwenoha along an especially treacherous stretch of Route 66 (at the end of "Killer Curve"). Schwenoha spent some time in Hawaii when in the military, and was inspired to open this restaurant upon his return.

The dining rooms had bamboo and murals of tropical scenes, but were spare in decoration and were clean and bright. The bar area initially was of the sleek, bamboo-bedecked variety that was common in the pre-tiki age, but apparently underwent a remodel at some point that added an angular bamboo frame over the bar and some tiki masks on the walls. The entire building was rebuilt at some point, but it is unclear when this happened.

Some items from The Tropics mention "Your Hosts Bev & Lou Johnson," with pictures of the original building. Bev and Lou (sometimes spelled "Lew") took over from Vince Schwenoha in 1955.

The restaurant continued operating until the early-to-mid 2000s. The building stood empty until it was demolished in 2017.

*The Tropics' fully restored neon sign now sits yards away from its original location at the intersection of the 1940-77 alignment of Route 66 and Woodlawn Rd.

Ming's is a Chinese restaurant with an attached bar area that is semi-Polynesian themed. There is a heavy use of lauhala mats, and all the lamps are made of tapa & bamboo and look like they are probably from Orchids of Hawaii. There are dark wooden masks throughout, but they look like generically-exotic Indonesian imports of recent manufacture. Tiki mugs are behind the bar. The restaurant has a dramatic Chinese facade that looks like it has been there for many decades; the bar feels like it acquired its Polynesian bent in the late '60s or mid-'70s. The restaurant itself apparently dates back to the 1880s.

And now the sad news: Ming's was purchased by a new owner around 2002; this new owner's immigration status precludes him from having a full liquor license, and now Ming's serves only beer and wine. The bar area is still intact, but no longer in active use.

This Polynesian/Chinese restaurant opened in 1976.

The decor is not heavily Polynesian, but there is a large tiki mask at the front entrance and an Orchids of Hawaii swag lamp over the bar.

Drinks are served in tiki mugs and there is also a flaming Pu-Pu Platter on the menu.

Tiki Port is a Chinese/Polynesian restaurant, it opened in 1977. The decor includes painted murals and beautiful Orchids of Hawaii style swag lamps, but the theming is more Chinese than Polynesian. It serves traditional Chinese/Polynesian favorites, including a flaming pu-pu platter.

Tiki Port has a slightly-more-Polynesian sister restaurant in Medford, Tiki Island.

The Polynesian Lounge opened in 1990, as a newly themed bar for the New Chinatown Restaurant. It was owned by Freddie and Jane Baker. Freddie "Kekaulike" Baker was born in Hawaii and moved to the mainland in 1949, he was an extra in Hollywood for some time, before forming a band. His band played hapa haole and other Polynesian-tinged tunes all over the country, including the Aku Aku in Las Vegas. He started headlining at the Tiki Kai Supper Club in the '60s, where he met Jane. The couple performed at the lounge regularly, along with a hula dancing friend, Evalani.

The New Chinatown was co-owned by the Ong family, and opened circa 1976. The restaurant was built using hundreds of green tiles which were brought over from China and are much coveted today (but these tiles were destroyed when the site was later leveled). When first opened, it advertised a Pagoda Bar and Kung-Pei Cocktail Lounge (one or both of these was probably coverted over to the "Polynesian Lounge"). It sat 400 people and they touted it as the finest Chinese restaurant in the Southwest.

When the New Chinatown Restaurant changed hands in 2003, the Polynesian Lounge was also sold, and the new owners turned it into a non-tiki, cabaret joint, and re-branded the restaurant as Mr K's Oriental Restaurant & Bar.

That was short-lived. This site has been re-developed (some time prior to 2015) and is now home to Labor Finders and Albuquerque Distilling (as of 2022) on the footprint of where the New Chinatown Restaurant used to be.

The Aku-Tiki Room was in the Andris Waunee Farm Restaurant, in a remote area just off Rural Route 2. Glen Andris purchased the farm in 1953, but didn't add on the tiki room until 1967 - inspired not by a trip to Hawaii, but instead by winter trips to Acapulco, and time spent in the Aku-Tiki restaurant there. The room was expanded in 1984.

It closed in January 2008, and there was an auction of the remains in June 2008.

Before becoming Honolulu Harry's Waikiki, this location was the Barrel O' Fun Tavern, John Dillinger's favorite hangout.

From its opening in 1949 (putting it squarely in the pre-tiki category), Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki provided “entertainment direct from Hawaii” and “dancing under Hawaiian skies.”

By 1959, its owner escalated the restaurant to an “authentic Hawaiian theatre restaurant.” Souvenir photos dated as late as 1960 have popped up (see below).

It stood on the corner of Clarendon and Wilson in uptown Chicago. “There were fresh pineapples on the tables, paper leis and ti leaves hanging all around”.

It appears in later years before it closed that the name might have just been shortened to "Club Waikiki". Matchbooks with the same address point in that direction. Alternately, it's possible this club was just a section of the larger complex like Don the Beachcomber's had its Dagger Bar, for instance.

Today, the site is home to The Covington Luxury Apartments, which were built in 1965, so Harry's must have closed some time between 1960 and 1965.

China Doll Restaurant is an older Chinese restaurant that has a few tiki touches, including several outstanding Orchids of Hawaii dodecahedron (12-faced) and beachcomber swag lamps.

They have a small selection of a dozen cocktails and serve some of them in tiki mugs. They also look to have an amazing Pu Pu Platter.

Open from 1972-1987.

This Chinese/Polynesian restaurant had fake palms in the parking lot and plastic flowers, masks, straw huts and a miniature outrigger in the dimly lighted dining room. All lit by Orchids of Hawaii swag lamps.

The dinner menu had extensive offerings of exotic Polynesian potables and main dishes, along with several Cantonese specialties, a half‐dozen Mandarin delights and some standard American fare.

Opened @ February 2023.

This small place is run by a Chamorro family that also runs the adjacent JJ's Island Grind restaurant. You can bring in food from there (which is mostly Hawaiian, Chamorro and Filipino style foods). The bar is a mix of what one might call modern Island style, and a lot of the decor is standard, mass-produced stuff (masks, fish floats, signs, etc.). There are several TV screens, but they seem to mostly play Chamorro music videos.