Sunken Harbor Club is an intimate nautical cocktail bar tucked away on the second floor above Gage & Tollner.

After eight years as a weekly pop-up at owner St. John Frizell's Red Hook mainstay Fort Defiance, The Club finally anchored in Downtown Brooklyn in October 2021.

Though this bar has no tikis, they certainly excel in making tiki style cocktails and various craft rum drinks.

They also have a mid-century friendly 200+ hour-long soundtrack that boasts Exotica, Surf, and Bossa Nova, for a retro feel -- and some thunderstorm sounds and other special effects mixed in to give a bit of that Don The Beachcomber rainstorm vibe.

The bar was profiled in Exotica Moderne Issue 17, 2022 and a good comparison was made to other nautical bars that are "tiki adjacent" such as the Molokai Bar at the Mai-Kai in Ft. Lauderdale.

While some tiki purists may bemoan the lack of actual carvings or artwork, they do not claim to be a "tiki" bar. However, there is no doubt that this venue appreciates tiki connoisseurs, understands tiki history, and has created a wonderful nautical bar that any mid century modern or tiki enthusiast would have a very difficult time not enjoying.

Opened in August 2013.

Three Dots and a Dash was the creation of star bartender Paul McGee, in partnership with Lettuce Entertain You, a Chicago area restaurant group. The bar is named for the classic Don the Beachcomber drink, itself a WWII call for victory using the Morse code for "V." The focus at Three Dots and a Dash is on cocktails, but it also delivers on the special Polynesian Pop details we've come to expect... most notably on the beautifully detailed souvenir mugs. There is a small menu of food, including a flaming Pu-Pu Platter.

In November 2014, Paul McGee left Three Dots and a Dash, and in January 2015 opened Lost Lake (However, Lost Lake is closed since January 2022).

The Three Dots and a Dash space is divided up into several sections, including The Bamboo Room (an exclusive 22-seat bar-within-a-bar opened in 2019). Led by Beverage Director Kevin Beary, The Bamboo Room was recognized as one of Esquire’s “Best Bars in America” in 2022. An ode to rum and rhum agricoles, the menu is composed of refined and focused rum drinks presented across multiple cocktail styles. Separate menu shown below...

The Tahitian in Pasadena opened on November 21st, 1961.

This location at 137 S. Lake Avenue was previously home to Steve Romer's Surf Rider, which had closed only 4 years before.

The Tahtian restaurant was co-owned by Don Avalier and Bill Dove with Chef Francois Sirgant as a third partner. It was one of two Tahitian restaurants, the other location was in Studio City. There was also a Royal Tahitian restaurant in Ontario, CA that used identical lettering and was likely related. Menu cover tiki was designed by Andres Bumatay. The decor was supplied by Oceanic Arts and Sea & Jungle, and the ceramic table lamps and coconut mugs were supplied by Spurlin Ceramics.

Open through at least 1968.

Luau is a Chinese restaurant in the Zona Rosa section of Mexico City. The building has a large Chinese pagoda facade, and the interior is decorated in an Asian style, with dragons and porcelain pieces. There don't appear to be any specifically Polynesian elements in the decor, but there are "tiki adjacent" elements present like their green ceramic Chinese tiles (utilized by Trader Vic's and other tiki locations) and a nice indoor koi pond made with what looks like lava rock. But in keeping with the seemingly incongruous Polynesian name, tropical drinks are served, and tikis have appeared in advertisements.

From their website:

"In 1957, Mr. Fong, an immigrant of Chinese origin, decided to rent a small space of just a few meters, in a house located on Calle de Niza in the Zona Rosa of Mexico City, to sell Chinese-Cantonese food using the original recipes of the family and naming the restaurant Luaú a word of Hawaiian origin that means "Banquet".

The delicious flavors of said foreign food soon caught the attention of Mexicans and the Chinese themselves, so the restaurant had to expand little by little until it became the restaurant it is today, with more than 1000 square meters, 2 lounges and a capacity for 200 diners, and with more than 100 dishes on the menu."

The Beachcomber was a Canadian chain of elaborate Polynesian restaurants in the same vein as other popular chains like Kon-Tiki, Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's. Other restaurants in the chain were located in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.

The Beachcomber was located in the Carlton Motor Hotel in Winnipeg; the motel opened in 1961, and the Beachcomber was open at least as early as 1962. The restaurant had a "star-lit sky" ceiling, and had thatched huts, and an open "steak pit" area where patrons could see chefs at work. An alcove dining area had floats, tapa and beachcomber lamps.

The Beachcomber was open until 1990.

The Carlton Motor Hotel became the Carlton Inn, and the then non-Polynesian restaurant on site was called Paragon.

The building was torn down in 2012 when what is now the RBC Convention Centre expanded.

The Beachcomber was a Canadian chain of elaborate Polynesian restaurants in the same vein as other popular chains like Kon-Tiki, Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's. Other locations were in Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg.

The Calgary location was open at least as early as 1967, judging by newspaper advertisements.

However, it burned down on April 19th, 1972, and there is now an office building where it once stood.

Opened in the late 1960s.

The Beachcomber was a Canadian chain of elaborate Polynesian restaurants in the same vein as other popular chains like Kon-Tiki, Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's. Other restaurants in the chain were located in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

This location was demolished to make way for the Broughton Tower in the 1980s, the ground floor of which housed a Fogg & Suds location.

When the Trader Vic's in Denver first opened in 1954, it was called The Outrigger. This restaurant was in the historic Cosmopolitan Hotel, which opened in 1926 and was demolished in 1984.

The Outrigger name changed to Trader Vic's in 1962.

This Trader Vic's closed in 1978 when the corporation decided they wanted a fresher location than the, by that time, 52-year-old hotel, and Trader Vic's opened a different location at the brand-new Denver Hilton three blocks away.

A Don the Beachcomber's moved into the vacated spot left by Trader Vic's at the Cosmopolitan.

The second Trader Vic's location at the Hilton lasted until 1985.

Opened 1963 and closed in 1980.

The Beachcomber was a Canadian chain of elaborate Polynesian restaurants in the same vein as other popular chains like Kon-Tiki, Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's. Other restaurants in the chain were located in Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg.

The Beachcomber reportedly was owned by Zane Feldman, the original owner of the Edmonton Oilers hockey team.

It was razed in 1980, an office building now stands in its place.

Opened in Summer of 2022.

Located inside the premises occupied for 20 years by a fish and chip shop, first known as Mr Chippy and later rebranded as Hook & Line.

Owned by Maria Pavlou and her partners who also own Vudu Lounge and have run it since 2004 in the same building.

The name "Dum Dum" comes from the Moai character in the Night at the Museum movies.

The interior is what they describe as "Tiki Modern" by which they mean sparse and uncluttered without doing the immersive decor that is familiar to those tikiphiles who are used to the old school standards set by Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's. Dum Dum's booths and stools incorporate rattan and earth toned vinyl padded seating. Walls are covered with tropical leaf prints. A couple of walls feature fake foliage and neon lighting with messages like "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Rum, Forest, Rum". Ceilings are lit with swag lamps and the space over the bar is draped with several dozen fake flower leis. There are a few small foot-tall Moai statues on one wall, but no large carvings...and especially with the bar's name, it seems like there should be at least one massive Moai on premises, even if carved of foam or fiberglass. Artwork and decor is lacking, but this stripped-down space is more focused on the club crowd who are there to dance.

That said, they appear to have a thriving cocktail menu with a variety of their own concoctions as well as old standards to choose from... and they do serve drinks in tiki mugs.

Opened in 1954, this short-lived establishment was technically at the very beginning of the tiki era, but from all accounts was still very much a pre-tiki Hawaiiana bamboo and surf bar/restaurant.

The interior was decorated with bamboo, rattan, and natural materials, with some large sheets of tapa on the walls as well. However, no actual carved tikis or tiki mugs.

The cocktail menu, shown below, is basically lifted from Don the Beachcomber's, including some of the graphics.

An advert from 1955 describes Steve Romer's Surf Rider as “Tops in Hawaiian entertainment featuring George Kainapau, the Golden Voice of Hawaii." Customers could also dance to the music of the in-house band called The Surf Riders.

The restaurant served Cantonese and American food, had private banquet rooms and a fashion show luncheon was held every Wednesday.

According to newspaper reports, the restaurant went into receivership in 1957.

This location is not to be confused with the Bakersfield Surf Rider, opened a few years later, which epitomizes the over-the-top decoration in the Golden Era of Tiki.

There were many unrelated restaurants that used this name over the years, and it is worthwhile to note that the name and what it evoked reaches back to the pre-tiki era.

*NOTE: This location at 137 S. Lake Avenue would eventually become home, four years later, to The Tahitian, which fully embraced the Golden Era vision of Tiki.

Today, with the area having gone through several construction remodelings, there is no sign of the original building. As of 2024, it appears to have been in what is now a parking lot area adjacent to Fidelity Investments.

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.