Lei Low opened in Houston's Heights neighborhood in late February 2014. The force behind Lei Low is husband-and-wife tikiphile team Russell and Elizabeth Thoede.

Lei Low serves drinks inspired by the historic tropical standards, but in their own modern style. Although Lei Low doesn't typically serve food, they do have occasional luau events.

A brightly colored mural of a tropical scene adorns the front entrance. Inside, the centerpiece of the space is a dramatic thatched A-frame structure behind the bar, which holds a collection of tiki mugs. There are a couple of vintage Witco pieces, and a few colored floats hang from the ceiling. There is seating in green booths, or on stools along the large bar. Tiki posts are found between booths and behind the bar. A grand peacock chair is near the entrance. Along most of the walls, the decoration comes in the form of framed art hung on framed pieces of lauhala matting.

This was a two-story tiki bar and Polynesian restaurant in Orlando's Wall Street Plaza, owned by a developer who owned six other clubs in the complex.

Waitiki opened in August of 2004, and featured a downstairs bar made of antique ironwood, outdoor balconies, many wood carvings and teak flooring.

It was not an immersive tiki environment, but there was much artwork from modern-day tiki artists like Flounder, Joe & Donella Vitale and local tiki carver Wayne Coombs (Mai Tiki).

Tropical cocktails were available, and the food was a more modern take on Polynesian cuisine, with a focus on seafood.

Upstairs bar was the "Monkey Bar" with the expected theme reflected in the decor.

On December 26th, 2024, the bar re-opened as "Warped Pour". Anything tiki-related was gutted and the new interior is themed around the Vans Warped Tour traveling rock music festival.

It appears this is the same location as Honolulu Harry's Waikiki but that the name might have just been shortened to "Club Waikiki" in later years. Matchbooks with the same address point in that direction.

Alternately, photos of Harry's show "Club Waikiki" painted on the side, so 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 Club Waikiki must have closed some time between 1959 when Harry's was doing dance reviews and dinner theater and 1965 when the Covington was built.

Don the Beachcomber's Chicago location was a legendary hotspot on the Chicago restaurant scene for decades. It opened on May 1st, 1940, and was open at least until the late '60s, probably later. It was in Chicago's Magnificent Mile neighborhood, about where the Four Seasons Hotel is today.

The building had a simple entrance, with a large neon sign in the trademark Don the Beachcomber driftwood sign shape. Inside, the restaurant had several rooms: the Tahitian Room and the Zombie Room were dining rooms, and the Cannibal Room was the bar. The bar had striking black posts carved with a stacked trio of Tahitian cannibal tikis. The whole restaurant was thoroughly encrusted with bamboo, and float lamps and beachcomber lamps were everywhere.

One of the key bartenders at the Chicago Don the Beachcomber, Mariano Licudine, eventually went on to lead the bar program at the Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale, bringing drinks in the Don the Beachcomber style with him that can still be tasted there today.

Mauna Loa was Mexico City's contribution to the mid-century world of glorious, immersive Polynesian restaurants. Through a classic A-frame entry, visitors were greeted by a central pool populated with live pink flamingoes, and were entertained by a full Polynesian floor show production.

Collectors are very familiar with the amazing graphics on the Mauna Loa menu and the variety of custom mugs and swizzles for this location as well.

This location now appears to be an office building.

*NOTE -- There was another more modern Mauna Loa elsewhere in Mexico City (at St. Jerome 240), that opened after the first (Hamburg 172) caught fire in 1966, and this newer one stayed open till 2002.

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.

This was a Steve Crane Associates restaurant, part of the same group of restaurants as the Kon-Tiki chain and the Luau in Beverly Hills.

It was located on the 37th floor of the Sheraton Hotel's Southland Life Tower. It opened on July 29th, 1960 and had four different themed dining rooms (Macao, Saigon, Papeete, and Singapore).

The Sheraton Dallas hotel was a very modern hotel when it was built as part of the Southland Life Insurance complex in 1958.

The entire complex went through some changes of owners and names over the years but eventually came under the ownership of Sheraton once again and underwent a series of renovations from 2009-2019 and is once again known by its original name as the Sheraton Dallas Hotel.

Opened in 1954.

This seedy motor hotel has two great things going for it: an utterly fantastic neon sign, and proximity to The Alibi (it's right across the street).

An overnight stay may not be for the faint-of-heart. It has received consistently bad reviews.

Politiki took a unique spin on tiki, featuring a line of tiki mugs in the likenesses of United States presidents: Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Nixon, Carter and Reagan (with a cameo by Nancy on the back, surrounded by astrological symbols). When it opened in 1993, there were three floors of tiki, but Politiki existed in its original form for only about 4 years. Afterwards, some decor remained but gradually disappeared with each new bar make-over.

Around 1999, the space became home to the Pennsylvania Avenue Pub and much of the tiki decor was removed.

For a time it existed only as the basement in the space's next incarnation as the Pour House, and in late 2004, almost all the tiki was gone.

The Pour House still displayed two of the presidential tiki masks on their exterior sign (Lincoln & FDR -- styled just like the earlier tiki mugs) but the bar closed in April 2014.

The next bar in succession was Stanton & Greene, which opened in 2015 and closed in 2018. They removed the two outside tiki masks in their remodel, which were the last vestiges of Politiki.

*However, for Politiki's 20th Anniversary (May 2018), the original owners brought it back as a pop-up in a different space (at Barrel on Capitol Hill) with new president-inspired tiki mugs (Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Steve Bannon).

This was the second Bahooka location (opened in 1976), and the one that lasted into the new millennium. The original location in West Covina operated from 1967 until 1980.

The exterior was decorated with pier pilings and long lengths of thick nautical chain strung between them. Also on display was an anti-aircraft cannon. The chain and cannon were painted white.

The interior of Bahooka was lit quite dimly, which contributed to its labyrinthine feel. The building was appraised at 8,598 square feet and had seating for 350 patrons and a banquet room that served 80. Aquariums were everywhere -- over 100. The decor could perhaps be described as more nautical than truly tiki, with many items salvaged from the same Navy scrap yard in Long Beach where they obtained the chain and anti-aircraft cannon outside.

Some of the more eclectic items included an old set of post office boxes flanked by Marquesan tiki poles in the front lobby, a vintage standing visible gas pump with glass cylinder at top, and an old set of sliding metal jail cell doors that could "lock up" patrons eating in the "jail booth".

Tikis could be found throughout Bahooka. Some of them were vintage pieces and some by more modern carvers.

They would make any drink a flaming drink -- even non-alcoholic ones.

Near the entrance was an aquarium holding a rather large, decades-old fish, a Pacu named Rufus, who ate carrot sticks. The pacu is a close relative of the piranha, and has become known as "the testicle-eating fish" after some unfortunate incidents in Papua New Guinea's Sepik River. Rufus was much beloved, however, and stuck to carrots.

Bahooka was also featured briefly in the film Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

At the beginning of 2013, it was announced that the owners of the building had sold it to a group intending to gut it of all decor and turn it into a Chinese buffet. The decorations were sold, with much of it winding up at Clifton's Pacific Seas (the jail cell doors, the gas pump, the largest tiki on premises...).

The current whereabouts of Rufus are unknown, despite a massive fundraising to re-home him and an offer by Damon's in Glendale. The new owners of the building were unwilling to produce him, however, leading to speculation that Rufus did not survive the transfer from his old tank.

The Bahooka closed in March 2013.

After the building's remodel, it was home to at least one or two short-lived Chinese restaurants. As of July, 2022, it is home to a Boston Lobster restaurant.

This is the location that started it all. (Well, actually it started across the street at 1722 McCadden on December 5th, 1933, and moved to this spot on May 26th, 1937.) Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, later and more widely known as Donn Beach, created what we think of today as a "tiki" or "Polynesian" restaurant. Bamboo-lined tropical themed night clubs had been fashionable for some time, but this was where it became more immersive. Donn's greatest innovation was surely the drinks. His travels throughout the world (and especially the Caribbean) gave him deep knowledge about rum, which in this post-prohibition era had become inexpensive. His blends of rums with fruit juice and spice flavors created exotic drinks that appealed to the masses. Backed up with Cantonese cuisine and a richly decorated environment complete with tikis, it was a hit.

Many of the most beloved tiki drinks were born here, including the Zombie, Navy Grog, Demerara Dry Float, 151 Swizzle, Shark's Tooth, Cobra's Fang, Dr. Funk. The original bartenders knew the recipes (Including Ray Buhen, who served them at his own Tiki-Ti. The recipes have been passed down to Buhen's son and grandsons and you can taste history there yourself.). Soon Donn learned to keep the recipes secret, even from his own staff, by using a system of codes and pre-mixed syrups. It didn't stop the competition from attempting to poach his staff or attempt his drinks, with mixed success.

Beyond the drinks, the entire themed-restaurant concept that Don the Beachcomber created was copied widely; perhaps first and most notably, it inspired Victor Bergeron to transform his Hinky Dinks into the first Trader Vic's.

Donn was the creative genius, but the business brains of the operation belonged to his wife, Cora Irene "Sunny" Sund. When they divorced in 1940, she retained the rights to the Don the Beachcomber name and concept in the mainland United States. She grew Don the Beachcomber into a successful chain of restaurants that flourished for decades.

Donn took his work to Waikiki (beyond the range of the deal with Sund, as Hawai'i was not yet a state) where he opened his own Don the Beachcomber restaurant, and became a major fixture in the booming Hawai'i tourist scene. He owned the Waikiki Don the Beachcomber until his death in 1987.

Thanks to many years of hard work (harder work than he would lead you to believe), drinks historian and author Jeff "Beachbum" Berry has been able to successfully decode and document many of the original Don the Beachcomber liquid masterpieces. His work has ensured that quality tropical drinks are back and here to stay, and are now being served all around the world.

The Tropics was purchased by Stephen Crane and renamed The Luau for its opening on July 25th, 1953. This was Crane's original restaurant; after the success of the Luau, he eventually went on to open the popular Kon-Tiki chain of Polynesian restaurants.

Steve Crane's Luau was one of the Hollywood/Beverly Hills restaurants (along with Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's) that established Polynesian cuisine (and more importantly drinks) as de rigueur in the 1950s and '60s. The Luau produced some of the most beautiful and highly desired serveware objects (designed by Gabe Florian) to come out of midcentury Polynesian restaurants.

The Luau was demolished in 1979 to make space for a Rodeo Drive shopping complex.

There is no connection between this historic restaurant and a newer restaurant that briefly operated with the same name in Beverly Hills.