Tiki Bars
Psycho Suzi's Motor Lounge
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States (Closed)
In November 2010, Psycho Suzi's Motor Lounge moved from their original location to this much larger space, just down the street and now right on the Mississippi River.
The main level includes a restaurant and bar, and a large patio overlooking the river. There are large carved posts and tikis, and walls lined with lauhala matting and and carved wooden tchotchkes. On weekends, house band Exotik-a-Go-Go plays Exotica music, and the upstairs area is open. The upstairs, Shangri-La, has three distinct themed bars: the Shrunken Head, Forbidden Cove, and Ports of Pleasure. Each of the upstairs bars can be rented out for private events.
From 2016 onward, Psycho Suzi's started an annual "Mary's Christmas Palace" event running from October 1st-January 31st where everything is converted to an over-the-top Christmas theme, including the drinks.
*NOTE: In September 2022, the owner listed this location for sale for $6 Million.
Their permanent closing was announced by the owner, Leslie Bock, for August 19th, 2023 on social media.
Koko-Mo Bar - Stockholm
Norrmalm, Stockholm, Sweden
Koko-Mo Bar opened in late 2013, and is a themed tiki bar within the non-tiki restaurant Grill. The bar hosts live music acts, including surf, jazz and Latin. Appropriate for its Swedish locale, the bar is decorated in a clean, modern take on tiki, with matching basket lamps and a long bar decked out in bamboo. The menu includes a variety of tropical cocktails both traditional and original, served in tiki mugs, and a good variety of rums.
Latest reports are that tiki cocktails and the Koko-Mo Bar are not being as emphasized as they once were -- however, the bamboo bar appears to still be in place.
The following appears on their website as of 2022:
"The restaurant is decorated in eight different environments. For example, you can sit in the Orient Express, Jaktstugan or Moulin Rouge. Since we change the decor from time to time, you can visit us again and again, and still experience something completely new with each visit."
So, you may or may not experience a tropical/tiki environment, depending on when you go, so best to call ahead.
Tiki Iniki - Princeville
Princeville, Hawaii, United States
Tiki Iniki opened in Princeville, on the north side of the island of Kauai, in 2013. It was brought to life by Michele Rundgren, wife of famed all-over-the-musical-map Todd Rundgren. The two fell in love with Kauai through their visits to the Coco Palms resort. They moved to Kauai just after Hurricane Iniki destroyed the resort. All these years later, they have now opened a place of their own.
The interior of Tiki Iniki was created by Bamboo Ben.
A sister Tiki Iniki location came and went in Atlanta, operated by a licensee without the Rundgrens' involvement.
Adrift
Denver, Colorado, United States
Opened in 2012.
Adrift is a modern-era tiki bar and restaurant. The primary focus is quality, classic tiki cocktails. The bar is covered in plenty of bamboo, the walls are lined with bamboo, and murals of elegant vintage-feel scenes of Polynesia are framed in bamboo, as well. Light comes from pufferfish lamps, glass floats, and a bit of fire for good measure. Carved tikis are found inside, and outside the building is flanked with metal tiki wall sconces and two large carved tikis.
The Hut - Tucson
Tucson, Arizona, United States
The Hut has been open since 2001, but in 2009 they embraced tiki in a big way when they saved a landmark 3-story moai from destruction. Stairs inside the moai lead to a railed observation platform on top of the moai's head. The 40,000 pound structure came from Magic Carpet Golf, and moving it to the courtyard at The Hut was no small feat. The moai now looks out across Tucson once more.
The Hut is a music venue with both indoor and outdoor stages.
They are more of a beer bar, and their limited list of cocktails are more like what you would find in a college bar with punches served in fish bowls and drinks with names like "The Pineapple Express" or "The Grateful Dead".
Le Tiki Lounge
Paris, France (Closed)
Le Tiki Lounge opened in 2012 in the Folie-Mricourt neighborhood in the 11th arrondisement, south of Belleville.
The decor, while a bit spare, included bamboo, pufferfish, glass floats, tiki carvings, and touched on all the important bits of a classic, quality tiki bar.
Bai also sculpted some wonderful versions of the Suffering Bastard for their house mug.
Closed November 2022.
Kanaloa - London
London, United Kingdom (Closed)
Kanaloa was a tiki-themed restaurant, bar & nightclub, owned by the same folks behind Mahiki, along with Girls Aloud member Sarah Harding. It opened in London's Blackfriars neighborhood in 2009. Much effort went into creating a welcome space for women at Kanaloa: going beyond free entry and discounts for women, house rules discouraged men from treating women like prey. The main bar had lots of sleek bamboo and shell lamps. The ceiling in one room was densely encrusted with many different colors of glass floats. An elevated "treetop" room had some artificial palms. The club had a large and varied rum menu.
This was the original location in what became a chain across the UK, with locations in Glasgow (closed), Croydon (closed), Cardiff (closed), Newcastle (closed), Portsmouth (closed), and Leeds (closed).
This original location closed its doors in January 2020. The space is currently home to a new bar/nightclub named Be At One.
Trader Vic's - Pearl District - Portland
Portland, Oregon, United States (Closed)
This Trader Vic's location opened in Portland in June 2011. There was a Trader Vic's in Portland from the '50s through the '90s in the Benson Hotel, just a short distance south of this new location.
In early March 2016, a small fire in the medical offices above caused some minor damage to a small patch of the ceiling. Though the repairs were to be covered by insurance, the owners of the location opted to close the restaurant entirely.
One of the two large exterior tikis that used to flank the entrance to the Portland Trader Vic's before it closed (around 8' tall with large lips, a small nose, and concentric Tangaroan-style eyes) now resides in a Dubai Trader Vic's.
Okolemaluna Tiki Lounge
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, United States (Closed)
Okolemaluna Tiki Lounge opened in November 2010, and closed in September 2012. (Okole maluna is Hawaiian for "bottoms up"; the Hawaiian "cheers".) Owners Brice and Lisa Ginardi put the focus solidly on the quality of the cocktails, serving classic tiki recipes made with locally-sourced fresh ingredients. As any cocktail lover who has visited Hawaii can tell you, this was a huge boon, a respite from the over-sweet, over-chemical drinks found everywhere in the islands. Okolemaluna's menu had about twenty cocktails, a mix of historic tiki cocktails from the great Polynesian palaces, and some new creations. The menu also had a small selection of pupus.
If you finished the entire drink menu, you could join the Okolemaluna Mug Club: you got your own custom mug kept on a special shelf behind the bar.
Beyond the drinks, Okolemaluna also sought to set a historic tone with the environment. The music was a mix of vintage and modern Exotica, and the space was filled with bamboo and lauhala matting. There was a lava rock waterfall, and some decor from defunct tiki bars.
Three Dots and a Dash
Chicago, Illinois, United States
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...
Lani Kai
New York, New York, United States (Closed)
Lani Kai was a Hawaiian-inspired (but not tiki) restaurant and bar in lower Manhattan. It was opened in 2010 by Julie Reiner, who grew up in Hawaii and has been behind several high-end cocktail spots in Manhattan including Pegu Club, Flatiron Lounge and Clover Club. While Reiner made it clear that Lani Kai was not intended to be a tiki bar, she and her staff knew traditional tropical cocktails inside-out, and executed them perfectly.
The space was dimly lit, mainly by candles... no beachcomber lamps here. The seating and tables were sleek and streamlined, and the rooms had lots of green plants. The feel of the spot was that of a modern, high-end spa in a Hawaiian resort. The upper level had restaurant seating and a small bar, and the lower level had a spacious bar area with a fireplace.
Lani Kai closed abruptly in the early fall of 2012.
American Museum of Natural History
Manhattan, New York, New York, United States
The American Museum of Natural History has a permanent exhibit dedicated to Oceanic art, the Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples. Margaret Mead was an anthropologist at the museum from 1926 until her death in 1978. She is most famous for her influence on American thinking about sexuality; she herself was influenced by the differing attitudes towards sex she encountered during her expeditions to the South Pacific.
The hall contains a wide array of anthropological pieces from Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. The anchor of the hall is a 15-foot reproduction of a moai from Rapa Nui, which famously came to life in the film Night at the Museum, bringing a more steady flow of traffic to the hall.
Pieces like those on display at the Hall of Pacific Peoples were a heavy influence on the graphic artists who created the logos, menus and tiki mugs for Polynesian restaurants in mid-20th century America.