Tiki Bars
Chief's Da Tiki Bar
Bonita, California, United States
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.
The Kon Tiki Village - Ramatuelle - France
Ramatuelle, France
Opened @2009.
This Tiki Resort is located in the south of France near Saint-Tropez, in Ramatuelle.
They have 305 mobile homes on site that have been cleverly disguised as tropical huts.
Open seasonally from April 5th to October 29th. Must make reservations starting in early December for the upcoming season.
Home of the Tiki Pop Fever Festival in 2015.
Shrunken Head Tiki Bar - Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States
Opened February 2022.
They tout themselves as being the first and only tiki bar in Colorado Springs, but Tommy Wong did have an Island Restaurant in Colorado Springs (not much evidence remains today). Still, for today's customers, this is definitely the only place in town.
Audriana Crane co-owns Shrunken Head Tiki in Colorado Springs along with local entrepreneur Joe Campana.
They were inspired by visiting Golden Tiki and Frankie’s Tiki Room in Las Vegas and wanted to bring something like that to Colorado Springs.
The main entrance is a door between Oskar Blues Grill & Brew and Bell Brothers Brewing entrances. There’s an elevator or stairs to take you down.
The focal point of the bar is a bubbling fountain with a fog machine and greenery.
The center bar has swings for seating and a whimsical Light Brite peg game.
The back bar has skulls embedded into the divider walls.
Drinks are served in an assortment of tiki mugs.
Hell or High Water Tiki
Denver, Colorado, United States
Opened July 1st, 2022.
This is not what anyone would describe as your usual tiki bar.
The owners (Lexi Healy and Veronica Ramos) opened Hell or High Water Tiki a mere six months after opening their first bar (The Electric Cure in Edgewater, CO).
Lexi describes it as, "A gay pirate ship meets Land of the Lost with phallic and bird undertones."
You won't find any traditional tiki totems, however. "We don't do any tiki totems because we don't want to step on any other culture's toes, so we don't have masks and we don't have tiki mugs that are totems," Healy explains. "There are people in the tiki community that say if you don't have masks or totems, you're not tiki."
In response, Healy has commissioned a Las Vegas artist to make a "five-foot dick totem" for the new bar. "It's as tall as me," she notes.
The Kon-Tiki Room - at Palmetto
Oakland, California, United States (Closed)
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.
High Roller Tiki Lounge - Alisal Road - Solvang
Solvang, California, United States
High Roller re-located to this location in July of 2020 from 1636 Copenhagen Drive to 433 Alisal Rd.
All of the drinks served are variations on tropical drinks, using wine as the base instead of rum or other hard liquor. The space is thoroughly decorated with lauhala and tiki tchotchkes, and souvenir mugs are available.
Solvang was founded by a group of Danes who traveled west to establish a Danish community far from Midwestern winters. The city is home to a number of bakeries, restaurants, and merchants offering a taste of Denmark in California. The architecture of many of the façades and buildings reflects traditional Danish style. Additionally, since Solvang is in the heart of wine country, you can easily visit up to 20 different wine tasting rooms within walking distance, so remember to pace yourself!
*NOTE: In addition to the main bar, there is a separate entertainment space with stage for live music - Club 433 - just off the patio and feet from the main bar.
Menu below with hula girl illustration on 2nd page by Miss Fluff.
Broken Compass Tiki Bar
Burbank, California, United States
Opened in 2019 on the site of what used to be Buchanan Arms, a British pub.
Upon opening, there were minimal changes made to the decor (some skeletons and cutlases and nautical netting) but this was in keeping with what the owners described as a pirate bar serving up British pub fare (Fish n’ Chips, Bangers n’ Mash, and Shepherd’s Pie).
However, from early on they had a heavily tiki influenced cocktail menu.
The cocktail program and regular food menu received excellent reviews and customers were told that they were going to lean more heavily toward tiki with future updates.
Further remodeling took place and in November 2022, the bar re-opened with a much more heavily tiki influenced interior including tons of rattan and thatched huts. The pirates and skeletons are still there also, but the overall tropical ambiance is much enhanced -- right down to Jose and Juan, skeletal versions of the parrots found in Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.
The name phased out from "The Burbank Pub" and into "Broken Compass" some time around the beginning of 2023.
The Monkey's Paw Tiki Bar - Springfield
Springfield, Oregon, United States
This brick and mortar location opened on May 5th 2021. Around August 2020 it originated as a pop-up and was further developed into a full-time permanent bar.
Monkey’s Paw co-owner Teren Baker says he and another co-owner, Jameson Cowman, discovered how tiki bars could be cool while attending a punk rock music festival in Las Vegas. They visited Frankie’s Tiki Room in Vegas, and Baker says it challenged his assumptions about tiki bars.
The heart of the bar is its lounge environment. There aren’t any clocks inside the building, and the windows are blacked out. Baker says the bar isn’t looking to have raucous live shows at the bar, but rather more intimate events, such as the December 2021 Elvis impersonator David Lomond.
Their tiki mugs are made by a local pottery, Down the Road Clayworks!
Castaways Cove Restaurant and Tiki Bar
Breckenridge, Colorado, United States
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.
Pete's Tiki Tiki
Rosemont, Illinois, United States
Opened Sunday, May 29th, 2022.
Located in Rosemont’s Parkway Bank Park entertainment district, Pete’s Tiki Tiki is the latest addition to the Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar family.
Pete's boasts 30 varieties of rum and more than 50 colorful cocktails, including the classic Tiki options, like the Mai Tai, the Zombie and the Jungle Bird.
Pete’s Tiki Tiki is open seven days a week starting at 5 p.m. and is located at 5510 Park Place Blvd, next to Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar.
In addition to seating for 50 indoors, Pete’s Tiki Tiki also features an outdoor patio under a thatched roof with additional seating for up to 200.
*NOTE: The large tiki outside previously graced the Kona Kai at the Chicago O'Hare Marriot. It is a surviving Ed Crissman carving purchased through Oceanic Arts and dwelled for a time in the collection of Duke and Amy Carter.
Rita's Tiki Room
Milano, Italy
Opened May of 2019.
The team at Rita placed their trust in their long-time friend Matteo Oioli. Matteo was the head set and props designer for television programs such as Friends, and global events such as the 2006 Turin Olympics, 2014 Sochi Olympics, 2016 Asian Olympics, and AIMAG in 2017. Matteo perfectly understood their desire to create an authentic tiki location with a strong visual impact. He managed to take advantage of the height of the space to fill it with elements that slowly reveal themselves to Rita’s patrons, gradually displaying the finishing details in the materials.
Woven coconut walls, hanging pots from the ceiling, ropes, bamboo chandeliers, jungle-style wallpapers, wicker chairs and tables, a terrace, vintage ceiling fans, hanging coconut leaves, juta lamps, a giant handmade canoe, and an infinite number of plants contribute to the overall setting. The bar also sports a 15 meter long oxidized brass counter with wooden finishing that snakes between the rooms and a tiki carved by specialist Paul Campese (Tiki Campese), who accurately reproduced the bar’s logo (originally designed by the Paperplane Factory).
McGuire's Tiki Room
Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States (Closed)
McGuire’s Restaurant and Lounge was located at 1201 W. County Road E in Arden Hills, three miles north of Highway 36 on US 10 between Lexington and Snelling.
McGuire’s seems to have opened in or before 1961.
They had several themed rooms, starting with the Tiki Room, but also including a Ranch Room/Piano Bar, Shamrock Room/Dance Hall, and the Gasthoff Room/German Buffet.
The themes and acts appear to have changed with the times and the location seems to have continued until some time into the 1980s.