The Limbo opened softly in January of 2018.

They offered a menu of tiki cocktails, many of which gave a nod to Louisville as deep in the heart of bourbon country.

From their website:

"The Limbo is a performing arts venue disguised as a Tiki Bar. The Limbo aims to have live entertainment 7 nights a week, including live music, DJs, Burlesque, drag shows, variety acts, magicians, spoken word, string quartets, and karaoke. Supporting artists and the performing arts while being an all inclusive venue where everyone is welcome no matter their background, gender identity, or sexual orientation. The owner, Olivia Griffin, moved to Kentucky from San Francisco in 2014 and realized there was no tiki bar in Louisville. Having spent her 20’s experiencing the wonders of classic Bay Area tiki bars like Smuggler’s Cove, Forbidden Island, and Trader Sam’s, she has always sought out unique, themed bars in every city she has visited."

Closed October 29th, 2022.

Built in 1956. The Village of Hillburn is where the once well-known Motel & Restaurant on the Mountain operated and was regarded as a local landmark. It was designed by a prominent architect, Junzo Yoshimura, who modeled the facility after the famous Kyomizudera temple in Kyoto Japan. 

The site boasted 16 buildings, a restaurant, 101 rooms, a coffee shop, and cocktail lounge, as well as a clear view of Manhattan from 30 miles away. They offered banquet/conference facilities as well as dinner theater and ski season packages.

Somewhere in this 18-year-span from 1956-1974 with the original owners, they also ordered custom cocktail mugs and drink bowls from Otagiri with their signature menu cover's risqué Geisha Girl which is taken from a piece of period art housed at the Met:

*Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753–1806). A Woman and a Cat, ca. 1793–94. Edo period (1615–1868), Japan. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. 

They removed the cat from their graphic art because apparently exposed nipples were permitted but showing pussy was just too much!

Thomas Esposito took ownership of the property in 1974 and unsuccessfully ran it for three failing years with many different entertainment acts. Faced with defeat, he brainstormed a last ditch attempt to make it work financially. From September 1977 - January 1978, Esposito attempted to turn it into the first gay resort in the Northeast. This attempt failed and successive businesses took control of the property since then. However, many today in the LGBTQ+ community still remember this as a historic first.

Today, it is home to Mt. Fuji Steakhouse and has been since 1985 when they did a major remodel to add it to their chain.

The Kona Kove Lounge was housed within the Stardust Bowl recreation center. It is unclear when it was built or closed, but it was open as late as April of 1970 as there are ads from that time for live music at the venue.

This bar is also mentioned in James Teitlbaum's Tiki Road Trip as part of the Stardust Bowling Alley and in Sven Kirsten's The Book of Tiki on page 198.

Wan-Q started out life in the 40's or 50's as a fairly average Chinese restaurant, but at some point in the 1960s (at least as early as 1962), owner Benny Eng was caught up in the Pop Polynesian movement and converted his restaurant into a unique tiki establishment with a full menu of tiki cocktails in addition to his already excellent Cantonese menu of food.

Benny outfitted his restaurant with rattan, bamboo, Tikis and waterfalls. And of course there was the exotic tinseled glory that was Wan-Q’s exterior which included a thatched A-frame roof, tapa cloth details, Chinese jade tiles and float lamps.

Wan-Q was replaced for a time by the Sugar Shack (live music venue circa 1994), which kept the exterior (including the sign) mostly intact. Several other restaurants also occupied the space since then. Today the location houses another Chinese restaurant called Fu’s Palace.

In 2019, The LuWow re-opened its doors in a prime spot in Melbourne’s cbd on Little Collins Street. It is in the space formerly occupied (fittingly) by Hawaiian-themed restaurant, Hana.

From their website:

"The LuWow has been recreated by 'Skipper' Josh Collins and Barbara Blaze Collins in a more intimate space, relax in a cosy booth or hang at the bar surrounded by an oasis of colourful kitsch with huge tiki totems, all carved by 'Skipper' Josh himself, leopard lounge suites, a jungle of plants and bamboo and a plethora of insane and wonderfully trashy souvenirs from the South Pacific and beyond. Josh & Barbara have kept to their retro OTT design ethic on this new venture. Their previous bars have been The LuWow (Fitzroy), Hula Bula Bar (Perth), Devilles Pad (Perth), South London Pacific (UK), Tikis (Belgium). Adding to the retro Tiki vibe of The LuWow the background music is hand curated from the owners’ huge vinyl collection of exotica, rhythm n blues, ska, soul, surf, 60s garage, beat & rock n roll."

The Castaways Hotel opened on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip across from the Sands Hotel in 1963, became one of the casinos billionaire Howard Hughes bought in the late 1960s and survived into the 1980s, when it was demolished to make way for Steve Wynn's The Mirage in 1989.

In 1963, the casino was themed as a Polynesian Resort, with Tiki torches and palm trees surrounding the exterior. It also included Pacific Island Tiki-themed showrooms and a bar with a fish tank in which a woman swam to entertain patrons.

The following year, in 1964, the Samoa Room showcased "Playmate of 1964" with March & Adams/Dick Wells/Jay Nemeth. The Kon-Tiki Room showcased continuous entertainment.

Successive remodeling as the years went on sometimes went against theme. For instance, outside the hotel, Castaways managers bought and assembled a sixty-year-old scale replica of an East Indian Jain temple, made of elaborately carved teakwood, which they called "The Gateway to Luck".

This establishment touts itself as Rome's first tiki bar.

Camillo Affinita and Alessio Esposito (along with their partners Alessandro and Marco) opened up Makai in November of 2016.

They feature a signature mug and other barware made by Maka-Tiki as well.

NU LOUNGE BAR was founded in December 2000 by four friends – Davide Cavallari, Daniele Dalla Pola, Elena Esposito and Maurizio Gerosa. The four members gathered their national and international experiences together in order to create a Cocktail Bar in the center of Bologna and offer their customers a unique experience.

It is tucked inside an open galleria and there is seating within the bar area as well as outside in the enclosed galleria space. Focus is on tiki cocktails and the bar features a unique assortment of Italian made tiki mugs.

Daniele Dalla Pola left Nu Lounge and is known in the United States for his work at Esotico Miami (closed in March of 2024) and its neighbor bar, the Kaona Room.

This tiki bar was opened in June 2017 by Ian McCol, the force behind the Tiki Bar and Kitsch Inn (see the similarity in logos). It was opened a couple of years after a Lola Lo's tiki bar closed at this same location. Lola Lo's was run as more of a nightclub and this incarnation made use of the space for more of a restaurant and bar atmosphere. However, the Auld Reekie Tiki Bar only lasted a year or so before closing and being converted into an Irish pub, Kitty O'Shea's.

This venue opened in August 2011 at the site of the former Po Na Na in Edinburgh. It appears to have closed after 2015 or so.

The Auld Reekie Tiki Bar opened at this same location in June 2017 (created by the owner of The Tiki Bar and Kitsch Inn) but it only lasted a year or so and was replaced by Kitty O'Shea's, an Irish pub.

Barney West (1919-1981) was a tiki carver during the golden age of midcentury Polynesian Pop.

West, a native of Seattle, came to the Bay Area as a boy when his parents moved to Oakland. His father was chief engineer for the steam schooner Wapama which is now part of a San Francisco waterfront museum. During World War II, West joined the Merchant Marine and served as a steward on Liberty ships in the South Pacific. During his 15 years at sea, West became interested in the native art of Easter Island, Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Hawaii, an infatuation that later had a great influence on his art. West moved to an ark on Corte Madera creek shortly after the end of World War II. To set himself up in the woodcarving business, he drove spikes and laid heavy rails for a railroad crew. West’s first wood carving came from redwood pilings he floated to his home from San Pablo Bay. His first major customer was restaurateur Trader Vic Bergeron who purchased many pieces of West’s early art.

After establishing himself as a wood carver, West opened a studio in Sausalito ("Tiki Junction") on land lent to him by Zack’s by the Bay owner (Zack’s became Margaritaville, then Paradise Bay, now Salito’s Crab House), Sam Zakessian in 1963. The tiny studio soon became engulfed by tikis and other assorted tropical carvings and vegetation. West began his carving career with conventional carving tools but soon progressed to a chain saw. He shipped in mammoth redwood logs by rail and shipped his commissioned works on flatcars all over the country. West’s art can be found in London, Hawaii, and Cuba. West’s business thrived well in Sausalito and at one time he had five apprentices working with him.

This Lola Lo location opened in April 2012 in what was previously the space occupied by Sakura bar and closed in November 2016. It was replaced by Lincoln Fever (a disco bar).

Set in a basement in the heart of Lincoln, one of the biggest challenges for the design team was how to incorporate a historical Roman wall through the middle of the space that had to remain visible but untouchable, so incorporating the elements of stone, a silhouette of Moais was incorporated on the glass to allude to their natural origins.

The main club room with flaming bar front and reclaimed timber wall had unique hand-painted volcano graphics and was surrounded by other tropical décor well known at Lola Lo’s such as the puffer fish lanterns and fisherman’s floats lights, fish traps and tapa cloth and vintage Hawaiian print seating. Seating area tables had glass-topped curiosity boxes showing off shrunken heads.