I’m always excited to find cool stuff going on back where I grew up in PA. Outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, there isn’t much in between. Sometimes you have to create your own scene and JoJo Feo is doing just that with her own Tiki jewelry business: JoJo’s Tiki Hut! There’s a growing rockabilly and pin-up community happening in central PA and JoJo is adding Tiki into the mix. This is her story…
Hey Gang! Check out my write up on Tacoma Cabana’s Lapu Lapu over at Acan Review.
Then head on over to Tacoma Cabana and have one for yourself!
Head on down to the Mai Kai in Fort Lauderdale, FL and for less than $15, you can be entertained by the Polynesian Islander Revue. The show is almost two hours of non-stop music, dancing, fire dancing and more! The coolest thing is you get to learn about Polynesian culture as you enjoy the show, eat, and drink. It doesn’t get much better than this. My buddy Dave Gittleman is a professional photographer and he got a ton of great shots of the show. Here’s a little taste of the action on stage at the Mai Kai!
Continue reading “The Polynesian Islander Revue At The Mai Kai Fort Lauderdale, FL”
I live in Seattle. I booked a flight and flew six hours across the country to go to the Mai Kai. Why? Because when it comes to Tiki bars, the Mai Kai is it! My visit to the Mai Kai lasted five hours and I could have stayed longer. What is so special about the Mai Kai you may ask? Well, let’s start from the beginning…
Continue reading “Tiki Bar Review #22 The Mai Kai Fort Lauderdale FL”
I was talking to a friend of mine and he mentioned that he really loves speakeasy bars. The idea of a speakeasy is borrowed from the days of prohibition when alcohol was illegal. People still wanted to party and get their drink on, so hidden bars were built. Some bars were in basements, in underground tunnels, or behind secret doors. Of course, it’s totally legal to drink booze now, but the idea of speakeasy is really cool.
I like to think of Toad’s Grog Grotto as a speakeasy Tiki bar! Heather and Terry Manning live in a townhouse in East Vancouver, BC and you would never think a Tiki bar would be near. But there is a Tiki bar and it’s in Heather and Terry’s garage. As much as Heather and Terry love Tiki, they also love bicycles. They needed to keep their collection of bikes somewhere, so they decided to split the garage in half. When you open the garage door, all you see are bicycles. Hidden behind the bikes is a curtain and behind that curtain lies Toad’s Grog Grotto! This is Heather and Terry’s story…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar #14 Spotlight Toad’s Grog Grotto East Vancouver, BC”
The last time I was at Disney World, they were just starting to build Epcot…
The gateway into Tiki culture for many people is the Tiki mug. Some mugs are found used at an antique shop or acquired as a souvenir at a Tiki bar. They look cool and collectable. It’s art that you can drink out of! At the beginning, Tiki mugs were just that. Mugs were designed to look like Tiki statues and that’s about it. Fast-forward to present day: Tiki mugs can be designed as pretty much anything. Many different subcultures like rockabilly, punk, hot-rod, or even just a general interest in Mid-Century lead people into loving Tiki. Why not combine those subcultures with Tiki? Luckily someone has! If you go to Frankie’s Tiki Room in Las Vegas, you can drink out of Tiki mug that’s shaped like a slot machine!
One subculture that has been mixed with Tiki is horror. I’ve seen Tiki mugs that are crafted as zombies, skulls, shrunken heads, and even as Frankenstein’s monster. Horror In Clay is the master of the horror-Tiki mug. The mugs they create are so cool and intricate. Jonathan M. Chaffin started Horror In Clay and here is his story…
Continue reading “Tiki VIP #9 Jonathan M. Chaffin (Horror In Clay)”
Lyndhurst, New Jersey.
It’s a city that’s a 45-minute train ride from downtown Manhattan. It has no claim to fame and I can’t see anyone needing to or wanting to go there—unless you happen to be my buddy Matt who lives there.
I was in Pennsylvania visiting my parents and long story short, I missed my connecting flight that would get me back to Seattle. I asked the man at the flight desk what my options were. He said I could come back the next day and fly out at 5:00 AM (no, I wasn’t doing that!) or I could fly down to Newark right then and fly out from there the next morning at 8:00 (okay, that’s much better). So that’s what I did.
Matt picked me up at the Newark airport and started heading back to his place. “Are you hungry?” Matt asked. “If so, there’s someplace you need to see.”
Continue reading “Tiki Bar Review #20 Lee’s Hawaiian Islander Lyndhurst, NJ”
Slice of life. It’s one of my favorite forms of entertainment. I have always loved looking at old photographs or watching home videos of people just living their lives. I like to see what people were wearing, what the homes looked like, what the cars looked like, etc. No one has invented a time machine yet, so slice of life videos and photographs are the closest we can get to going back in time…
Continue reading “Tiki Video Spotlight #1 Cinerama South Seas Adventure Movie”
Imagine you wanted to make your own Tiki bar but you were “good with tools.” The possibilities would be endless! If you can dream it, you can build it and that’s what Dana Fryer, aka Cabana Man, did with his place. Dana wanted a bar, so he built it. He wanted a tide pool, so he built one. How about a cave? No problem, it only took Dana 74 beers to build one. The name of Dana’s Tiki escape is called the Cabana. Here is his story…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #12 The Cabana Aloha OR”
