Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #120 Mahu Lounge – Ypsilanti MI

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Mahu Lounge

There’s a waterfall in the shower!

Kurt and Lance live in a small town east of Detroit. It’ called Ypsilanti and I have no idea how to pronounce it! Downstairs in the basement of Kurt and Lance’s home you will find the Mahu Lounge but what’s unique about their home tiki bar is that it expands into different rooms. A bedroom adjacent to the bar has been turned into the The Dirty Pearl VIP Champagne Room. The tiki has also moved into the downstairs bathroom as well. They never use the shower so they put a waterfall in it! Great idea! Here is the story of the Mahu Lounge and The Dirty Pearl VIP Champagne Room…

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #119 Paradis du Zombi – Grosse Pointe MI

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Paradis du Zombi

When I walked in to Zach Robert’s home tiki bar, I felt like a I stepped into a temple, a tiki temple! The bar is in the center of the Zach’s space with two tall tikis from Detroit’s Mauna Loa, two smaller tikis on the far sides of the garage and one giant tiki towering above the bar. The name of this incredible bar is Temple of Rum but that doesn’t include what’s on the outside! I will let Zach tell you more about Paradis du Zombi…

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #118 Skipper Burnsy’s Enchanted Tiki Oasis – Normal IL

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Skipper Burnsy's Enchanted Tiki Oasis

Sometimes a tiki bar on your back patio just isn’t enough…

And for a while this is all that Kent and Jenny Burns needed. After a while Kent got tired of always having to go back inside to make himself another drink, so he bought a gazebo from Sam’s Club and converted into a backyard tiki bar. This new bar had it all, it had a sink, running water, a refrigerator, television and most importantly… heat! Kent and Jenny live in Illinois and it gets cold in the winter but that doesn’t stop them from enjoying their tiki bar all year long! The name of Kent and Jenny’s tiki bar is called Skipper Burnsy’s Enchanted Tiki Oasis. Read on to learn why…

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #117 Kraken’s Bay Tiki Lounge Warren MI

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Kraken's Bay Tiki Lounge

From Parrot Head to Tikiphile…

Before Ed Schroeder discovered tiki, he was a Parrot Head. There’s a lot of crossover between the tiki, pirate and Jimmy Buffett subcultures. From an outsider’s perspective, they may appear all the same, but as Ed slowly discovered the world of tiki, he realized that tiki bars are the “real deal” and started to build his own! Kraken’s Bay Tiki Lounge is Ed’s basement but it feels like paradise. Here is Ed’s story…

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #116 The Exotica Suite – West Bloomfield MI

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The Exotica Suite

It’s been said that good things come to those who wait.

In the case of The Exotica Suite – a home tiki bar in West Bloomfield, Michigan owned by Matt and Nui Totsky – that certainly rings true. Matt shares how their story of patience and perseverance finally paid off with the room of their dreams.

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #115 Thirsty Piranha – Seabeck WA

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Thirsty Piranha

Would you have a piranha as a pet?

During covid times, Wendy and Carl had a lot of time to kill so they decided to build a tiki bar behind their home in Seaback WA. Seabeck in located out on the Peninsula here in the Pacific Northwest and is about an hour and a half drive from Seattle. You need to travel on a dirt road through the woods to get to The Thirsty Piranha and I have to be honest is kind of creepy going through at night. It’s really dark out there! But once you get to Wendy and Carl’s home you start seeing the multicolored lights of the Thirsty Piranha. There are plenty of windows which would normally be frowned upon for a tiki bar but here, it works! You feel like your outside with nature and you don’t have to be worry about getting eaten by a bear, but inside, you have to watch out for the piranhas!

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Seattle Sunset Tiki Cruise 5/18/24 by Sean Heath

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Seattle Sunset Tiki Cruise 5/18/24 by Sean Heath

Dedicated readers, Tiki with Ray has foolishly left his computer out and yours truly cracked his password (12345 same as on my luggage) and taken the helm of the ship. Let us hope it doesn’t capsize as I do donuts and recreate scenes from Speed 2, or possibly, the Titanic.  Either way we have rocky shoals ahead.  

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #114 Rita’s Lost Weekend – Matawan NJ

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Rita's Lost Weekend

Remember that movie Escape From New York?

Once you got in, it was hard to get out. But in reality, it’s quite the opposite. If you want to drive into Manhattan from New Jersey you have only three options: Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel or the George Washington Bridge. If you want to take a train in, you got two ways in, NJ Transit or you can take the PATH train.

So, if you want to tiki and you live in New Jersey, what do you do? You don’t escape to New York, you build a tiki bar in your garage and escape there! This is exactly what Shanna and Johnny did and here’s their story…

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Tiki VIP #52 LeosLowbrow – Tropical Painter – Rev. Dr. Leo Hartshorn

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LeosLowbrow

As I’m getting older, I’m realizing that my life has been a series of chapters like in a book and the same can be said for Rev. Dr. Leo Hartshorn.

Leo has gone from playing drums in a 60’s psychedelic band, to becoming a minister and more recently a painter. Leo had done many styles but the paintings that stood out to me where that of famous tiki people. Leo has done paintings of Donn Beach, Shag, Martin Denny, Bob and Leroy of Oceanic Arts and Sven Kirsten!

Here is Leo’s story so far…

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