Opened November 18th-19th, 1961. Aloha Jhoe's was created by Lyle R. Wheeler, a prolific Hollywood Art Director who won Oscars for his work on Gone with the Wind, Anna and the King of Siam, The Robe, The King and I and The Diary of Anne Frank, and was nominated another 24 times (many years, against himself). Wheeler was an Art Director on South Pacific four years before the opening of Aloha Jhoe's.

Featured on pages 28-29 of Sven Kirsten's The Book of Tiki.

Sam's Seafood started in its original location in 1923 at 2501 Coast Highway and, up until its Polynesian remodel in 1960 it was just a seaside seafood joint.

At 3 a.m. on Feb. 17, 1959, a fire burned the original Sam’s Seafood to the ground. Forced to rebuild, then-owners Ruth, Nick and Dick Katsaris glommed on to the midcentury fad sweeping Southern California: Tiki!

In 1960, they invested $1 million and hired architect Don Davis to design the new face of Sam’s and introduced Surfside to “Sam’s Seafood and Hawaiian Village.”

Sam's Seafood contained several dining rooms. The brightly lit main dining room had a large wall mural on one side and a dramatic tiki & waterfall display at the back. A pair of smaller side dining rooms were also bright and more aviation themed.

Of more interest to the tikiphile was the Hidden Village (Hawaiian Village) banquet room area in the back available for event rentals, which was large and moodily lit, with glass floats, waterfall displays, A-frame covered seating areas, and a small bar. On Friday nights from April to November, Sam's Seafood had a Polynesian Dinner Show in the Hidden Village. Last but certainly not least was the excellent main bar at Sam's. It was dark and full of excellent carvings, pufferfish and float lamps, and thatch.

A small bar with some tiki carvings inside, Turc's, can be found just down the street.

At the end of May 2006, Sam's Seafood was sold to developers who aimed to build retail spaces & condominiums on the site. Red tape appeared to be holding off any development on the site for years. Sam's closed for several months until June 2007, when the property owners allowed a new group to come in and keep the restaurant running in a somewhat modified form until the development could move forward.

In 2007, Sam's Seafood became Kona. In 2009, Kona closed and the restaurant reopened as Don the Beachcomber (no connection to the historic chain), which then closed in 2018.

This tiki bar opened to much fanfare in 2001, but it reportedly closed for "renovations" in November of 2002. In reality, it shut down after running into some governmental crankiness over unpaid back taxes.

Their theme was Rat Pack meets Tiki. They also had a number of early Tiki Farm mugs branded with their location.

In 2006, the space finally reopened as Headhunters, a punk dive bar renowned as a live music venue.

Headhunters fell on hard times and was cleaned up and re-branded in 2012 as Metal and Lace: Steampunk Lounge by Host Jon Taffer of the Bar Rescue television show.

However, the changes didn't stick and the bar went back to its old name and ways and closed in 2014.

Opened in October of 2022.

Hubba Hubba Tiki Tonk describes themselves as: "a bit tonk, a bit tiki and a lot of rock n roll."

This is accurate.

It is not a tiki bar in the strictest sense, but it does have some tiki decor, including their logo (which is based on a mass-produced 5' tall fiberglass Ku with glowing eyes who oversees a special corner inside). There are also a bunch of tiny pufferfish hung over the main bar. They do serve tiki cocktails (but only 5 classics on the menu, including the Mai Tai, Planters Punch, Blue Hawaiian, Painkiller, and Jungle Bird).

The majority of the bar is dedicated to kitsch of all kinds, including many velvet paintings of rock stars and pop figures like Elvis, Eddie Van Halen, Alf, ET, etc...

The overall take-away is of a vintage rumpus room/dive bar that's exploded with pop culture art and collectibles.

So, if you are there drinking a mai-tai while a surf rock track is playing and you are seated in a corner across from the Ku, you might find yourself having a very "tiki" experience. However, if loud hard rock is playing while you and your friends are slamming back shots under the movie poster for Terminator II, you may find yourself wondering how this could remotely be considered "tiki" at all.

Mileage will vary...

Opened April 17th, 2023 in what used to be the Genting Palace Lounge.

The idea, apparently, was that the Genting Palace Restaurant was too formal and intimidating for their lounge to see casual traffic from people not interested in dining, so they separated it from the restaurant and made it a more inviting and slightly more casual space.

There was a very light re-model of the old lounge which already had a bit of an exotic Asian vibe. Tiki masks were added, along with some standing surfboards and an impressively lit wall of mugs that appear to have all been sourced from BarConic or some other inexpensive tiki mug wholesaler.

Beverage Director Will Cahow insists that The Golden Monkey, which takes its name from the golden monkey statue that has sat on the bar since the venue opened in 2021, shares no association with the similarly named Golden Tiki. “We want to be a little different,” he says.

The Golden Monkey lists 50 types of rum behind the bar and 20 cocktails on their menu, which you can check out below.

Opened in 2016 in Barranco, Lima, Peru. This is one of three locations in Peru, which include Barranco, Punta Hermosa, and San Borja.

Barranco, towards the south, is one of 43 districts in Lima, Peru.

Curayacu makes the claim of being the first tiki bar in Peru.

The interior design of the bar makes good use of tiki style colored lighting and they do have natural materials, bamboo, and fish float lights, as well as tiki masks and framed prints from tiki artists in abundance. Some sections appear a bit rustic, with sealed plywood walls and concrete floors, but others are more finished with tile and other materials.

Their menu has many classic tiki cocktails as well as some of their own in-house signature drinks. They also boast over 120 rum labels behind the bar.

They serve cocktails in tiki mugs, many of which were made specifically for this location, including a signature tiki mug in several color-ways and a unique-looking Frank Sinatra zombie mug!

Opened December 23rd, 2022.

Pōā Tiki Bar claims to be the first permanent bar in Ottawa to have a tropical Hawaiian atmosphere.

The entire space is filled with tiki and pirate-themed decor - with nautical ropes and flotsam & jetsam hanging from the ceiling -- all artfully lit with colored lighting.

Their cocktail menu features some unorthodox creations of their own and some unusual serving vessels, including their "Shokin Pirate" which is served in a clear glass bong with dry ice to provide a smoke effect in the chamber.

Opened June 10th, 2021.

This bar was next door to Palmetto and from the same team behind both The Kon-Tiki and Palmetto. In fact, it shared a door with Palmetto and served food out of the Palmetto kitchen. However, the Kon-Tiki Room was a dark tiki bar and felt entirely different from its next door neighbor.

The interior leaned heavily toward the nautical side and was designed by artist Woody Miller (Wood Tiki).

*NOTE: In an Instagram post by Palmetto on 10/06/2023, they announced that both the Palmetto and The Kon-Tiki Room would be closing for good on 10/29/2023.

February 9th, 2018, this tiki bar was completed for the Laguna Beach Hobie store location.

Built by Craig Dunlap.

Although it isn't open as a working bar, it is certainly trimmed out perfectly and encapsulates the classic vibe of a mid century Southern California Tiki Bar.

The Oceanic Arts PNG mask on the door is a nice touch.

It might possibly see some actual bar use for the occasional employee party, but is mostly used for photo ops.

Hobie also has another larger bar at their warehouse location termed "The Embassy" that seems to get more use as an actual bar space for employees.

The first Brass Monkey Tiki Bar opened at the end of 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In 2018, a new sister location, Brass Monkey Esbjerg, opened its doors.

Brass Monkey Esbjerg appears to have closed some time at the end of 2021 and then re-opened in August 2022 under a new name as The Tiki Hut.

The Tiki Hut was not well received and closed just a few months later to be replaced by a more traditional beer bar in January of 2023.

Opened November 15th, 2020.

Castaways Cove is located in the basement of River Mountain Lodge, and replaced the old Tiki Mana bar.

Owners Michael Beseda and Justin Guadagnoli, longtime Summit County locals, aspire to a cocktail bar that will be “representing the golden era of tiki” in the 1950s, according to Beseda, with 30 types of rum.

Opened at least as early as 2020.

This restaurant offers a fusion menu of Mediterranean food and other cuisine. They do have some tiki decor and use generic tiki mugs to serve cocktails, but the overall vibe is of a mid-luxury resort restaurant that with very little effort could change themes if necessary. What this location has going for it is the spectacular ocean view -- it is built out on stilts over the Al Bandar Marina -- so great for sunsets.