This sister location to the famous London Mahiki opened in the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in December, 2011. Like the London location, it became a destination for celebrities, and wannabe celebrities. A vast cocktail menu was served, and food as well. The attractive decor was upscale tiki, and had a nightclub feel. This location closed in 2018, due to “unforeseen circumstances during the renovation” of the hotel, as stated by the owners at the time.

There have been several other Mahiki locations. In 2017, Mahiki's owners further expanded and franchised the brand. In the course of that year, Mahiki Clubs have opened in Marbella, Spain (Mahiki Beach/closed in 2021), in the Forte Village Resort in Sardinia (now closed), in Manchester in collaboration with Gary Neville's company GG Hospitality Management Ltd. (closed in 2018, re-opened in 2019, but closed again in 2020) and at a second London location (Mahiki Kensington, closed in 2019). There was also a Mahiki club in Gothenburg, Sweden (closed).

This short-lived restaurant opened in October 2008 and closed just a year later. There is no connection between this restaurant and Beverly Hills' famous The Luau, created by Steve Crane in the 1950s although the Steve Crane signature tiki was represented in a framed painting and a small carved version was prominent in the front of the restaurant.

Bamboo Ben was hired to do the decor, particularly the pufferfish lights, but they restrained him from going all-out.

Rather than the nod to historic Polynesian Pop that the name choice might suggest, this upscale restaurant was sleek and more Asian than Polynesian in design (with carved Gyan Mudra Yogic Buddha's Hands all over the restaurant and as their logo).

However, the drink menu had some classic tiki drinks, and was developed with input from Beachbum Berry.

This seaside resort opened in the 1960s (circa 1961), and advertised that they had "Four Exotic Cocktail Lounges - Polynesian and American Foods in Tiki, South Seas or Kona Rooms or in Beefeater Restaurant."

At some point it became the Sheraton Bel-Air Resort Hotel & Marina (which housed a Trader Vic's in 1971 and closed in 1973 -- possibly as late as 1975).

The property became a Days Inn in 1987, and in 1998 became the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort. As of 2012, it was the Magnusson Hotel Marina Cove Resort and by 2020-2021 this location had fallen into disrepair.

In 2022, investor Ben Willner and his team purchased the 18-acre property for over $17 million and began renovations.

The resort, now named SkyBeach Hotel and Marina, contains 113 renovated guest rooms, a private beachfront, a rebuilt marina, a sports complex with pickleball courts, a two-story beachfront bar, a cafe, a food truck, and more.

*NOTE: Their new bar & restaurant, South Seas Tapas, is slated for Fall 2025 and intends to have tropical drinks and honor the Pop Polynesian history of this location.

Opened September 11th, 1955.

Built by Dan Compton and U.E. Uhiman. The hotel had 64 rooms.

The Bali Hi also had a restaurant, a coffee shop, a bar, and not just 1 but 2 heated pools.

Turquoise, cocoa and coral were the color scheme.

The main sign was very unusual with the hotel's name spelled out in large shells.

The main bar was called the "Tabu Room" and had a mural depicting a "Balinese dancing scene" according to a local newspaper article describing the grand opening.

The Sahara itself opened in 1952 and has long been considered a classic of the early Las Vegas "Strip" casinos. This Don the Beachcomber opened there December 1st, 1962, in the third floor of the Sahara, and featured decor by Eli Hedley, who also created the large signature tikis for the nearby Aku Aku. Dining and cocktail capacity was set at 300 persons. The facility featured a sky room with dancing, cocktail lounge, a huge waterfall and individual Polynesian style huts suspended over flowing water for the comfort of diners. The menu featured over 40 varieties of dishes. The Sahara Don the Beachcomber’s first female hostess in 1963 was Ruth Maestas, who recalled that prominent local residents who were regular customers used chopsticks that were stored in their personalized bamboo containers at the restaurant. She and her late husband, Louie “the Blade,” would later own the hotel barbershop and claim among their clients singer Robert Goulet, comedian Buddy Hackett and jazz drummer Buddy Rich. The Sahara closed on May 16th, 2011.

Harry "Sugie" Sugarman, manager of Grauman's Chinese Theater, opened his Tropics supper club on November 27th, 1935 at 421 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The Tropics was one of the earliest exotic theme bars in the Los Angeles area, with an interior decor consisting of bamboo and tropical foliage. The club's dance floor was located in the "Rain Room" which had a glass roof upon which tropical showers fell several times each night.

The Tropic's food menu consisted mostly of Chinese and American dishes with the specialty being Sugie's Indian Curry Chicken. Sugarman capitalized on his motion picture connections by naming exotic drinks in honor of the celebrities who frequented the Tropics (such as Shirley Temple -- shown below...although her signature mocktail is said to have been invented in the late 1930s by a bartender at Chasen's in Beverly Hills). A few of the celebrities and the drinks they inspired at The Tropics were Sonja Henie (Thin Ice), Lana Turner (Untamed), Caesar Romero (Deep Purple), Rita Hayworth (Karanga), Paulette Goddard (Captain Blood), Barbara Sanwyck (Papeete), Robert Taylor (Coquette), and Bette Davis (Samoa of Samoa).

The Tropics was purchased by Stephen Crane and renamed The Luau in 1953. The Luau was demolished in 1979 to make space for a Rodeo Drive shopping complex. In addition to his Beverly Hills club, Sugie also opened another Tropics club at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood.

The Caliente Tropics Resort began its life as simply "The Tropics" when it was opened in 1964 by Ken Kimes. Kimes owned 40 motels, and five of them were the Polynesian-themed Tropics chain with locations in Blythe, Indio, Modesto and Rosemead. The Kimes family later earned headlines when Ken's wife Sante and son Kenny were wanted, and later tried & convicted, for a variety of crimes including murder and kidnapping.

In its '60s heyday, the Tropics, especially its Congo Room steakhouse and underground Cellar bar, attracted the celebrities of the era who lived and vacationed in Palm Springs, including members of the Rat Pack. The front of the resort held a Sambo's coffee shop. In later years, the Cellar bar was closed, and the Congo Room (1964 - 1971) became the Reef Bar.

The Tropics fell into rough times in the '80s, attracting unsavory characters who disrespected the hotel. The hotel was rescued by new owners in 2000, and after a $2.2 million renovation, it was restored to its former tiki glory.

A couple years later the Reef Bar was remodeled to bring it up to speed with the newly refreshed hotel, with bamboo work by Bamboo Ben. In 2006, the Reef Bar was transferred to independent owners, and was called Hawaiian Bill's.

In 2009, the Reef Bar/Hawaiian Bill's had been gutted of all tiki details, and the hotel was advertising the restaurant/bar space on site as available for lease. They were planning on making some major architectural changes to the building, including the removal of an A-frame entrance to the bar and restaurant. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

In 2015, new hotel owners reinvested in the tiki theming, having the artist Bosko complete large tiki signs ringing the courtyard, representing different Polynesian islands. The grounds still have several detailed vintage tikis by carver Ed Crissman.

In February 2017, Rory Snyder took over and refreshed The Reef Bar overlooking the pool.

In Summer of 2022, Snyder added Sancho's Mexican Restaurant and a second bar, Le Fern.

*This site was the original host of the ever-growing Tiki Oasis event (2001-2005), before it moved to the San Diego Crowne Plaza (2006-2019), and was briefly held at San Diego's Paradise Point (2020) before moving to San Diego's Town and Country in 2021.

**Since 2009, Caliente Tropics resort has been host to the annual Tiki Caliente event (as well as other tiki events like Circa Caliente) which some describe as a smaller and more intimate version of what Tiki Oasis is like now. The resort also sees a great deal of traffic during Palm Springs' Modern Week.

In Santa Ana Square, the unassuming front doors of Mauna Loa Bar Hawaiiano lead to exotic decor that stretches across three floors of the venue.

The front bar has a large bird cage on one end with several live birds. Bartenders are happy to prepare drinks in the ornate porcelain tiki vessels found in Spain.

The successive grotto-like floors below are mostly taken up by small intimate booths, some sporting fish aquariums. It is common for couples to come here and share a tiki bowl -- perhaps a dry ice smoking volcano as pictured in their logo.

To be warned, some tiki purists used to traditional Don The Beachcomber or Trader Vic's recipes may not find the cocktails to their liking, but as with many tiki bars in Spain, the focus is less on craft cocktails than the ambience, and this bar is a true classic time capsule that is not to be missed.

This theme park included Trader Frank's restaurant.

In the mid-1940s, "Trader" Frank Byars and his wife, "Wahine" Jo Byars, ran a small St. Petersburg hotel. His wife began making jewelry from shells, and Mr. Byars saw that they were more than pretty; they were sellable.

They lost the lease on their hotel and decided to move forward with his wife's jewelry and other related gifts.

They bought the inventory of a failed gift shop, stocked it with similar shell jewelry, and started the Signal House, ultimately one of the Suncoast's largest gift shops. To attract customers, Mr. Byars put in a small Polynesian garden.

The Signal House burned in 1962, and they decided to rebuild it in earnest as a real tourist attraction.

They researched to see if there were any other attractions in the state with a Polynesian atmosphere and found none.

Thus came about Tiki Gardens, several gift shop, and its 450-seat restaurant, Trader Frank's, on 7 acres of palmetto swampland overlooking the bay and Gulf of Mexico.

The layout was greatly influenced by The International Marketplace in Honolulu and its gift shops and restaurants.

The tiki gods were designed by Gordon Keith Originals of Columbus, Ohio.

From the start, back in 1964, business was good. Auto clubs and tourist guides soon recognized Tiki Gardens as a Florida attraction.

In 1988, Mr. Byars and his wife sold the attraction to Australian investors Neville Schmidt and Darrell Roder. As partial payment they accepted $1-million in opals.

Tiki Gardens was subsequently closed and later, in 1990, Pinellas County commissioners approved plans to buy the site where Tiki Gardens stood and turn it into a park.

Charming neighborhood bar that began a conversion to tiki in 2001 when it was purchased by current owners Dave and Rebecca Fernandez. Purple Orchid serves tropical drinks in mugs featuring their logo tiki that are available for sale. Purple Orchid periodically hosts parties to celebrate special events such as Halloween, New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, by having bands perform on their small tiki-filled stage. Purple Orchid has two pool tables covered in purple felt, and a jukebox containing a few tiki-bar friendly selections, including APE's Jungle Sounds. The owners' Purple PT Cruiser painted with color-changing flames and the Purple Orchid can be seen around town. Be sure to visit the restrooms, which are papered with pages from Sven Kirsten's Book of Tiki.

Open since April of 2023, Tiki Volcano is located in Northern Madrid.

The couple managing the bar, Miguel (Señor Castaway) and Julia Escobedo, are truly passionate about tiki history.

The bar's light fixtures were salvaged from the very first tiki bar in Madrid, opened in... 1961.

Miguel owned and operated two previous tiki bars in Madrid (The Kona Lei from 2013-2015 and the Tiki Chateau from 2016-2022).

Behind the counter stands a wall of rum and here the focus is on quality classic cocktails.

Many other Spanish tiki bars built during the 1960s and 70s may boast a more ornate tiki decor build-out but have lost their way when it comes to quality tiki cocktails in the Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber tradition. Not Miguel. You can count on quality crafted drinks when you visit his establishment.

The Santa Barbara Inn was built in 1962 and appears to have started out with a pop-polynesian themed restaurant on its second floor, called the Oceania Room. This Oceania Room had live music and sported a tiki menu cover taken directly from The Tahitian (locations in Studio City and Pasadena).

As it had done a few times before, Don the Beachcomber did a "Hermit Crab" move into the previous Oceania Room space, taking advantage of its already Polynesian-themed build-out. This happened in 1976.

It's unclear, but seems that Don's was only open for a couple of years at this location before closing.

It's also unclear whether there was a fire or just neglect in the intervening years, but the structure appears to have remained vacant for a time and was mostly demolished by 2013.

However, the 55-year old boutique resort underwent a complete restoration, beginning in late 2013. They started over with just 1 pillar remaining from the original building, but the building's unique shape, pool location, and the grassy area in front all exist today just as they did before.

The Santa Barbara Inn re-opened to the public in July, 2016.

The Santa Barbara Inn features 70 spacious guest rooms and suites, most with views of the Pacific, while others face the majestic Santa Ynez Mountains. Five fixture bathrooms, 400+ square foot rooms and 700+ square foot suites with Jacuzzi tubs are but a few of the features offered at the resort.