Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #1 The Aloha Lounge, Ballard, WA

Don at The Aloha Lounge
Don at The Aloha Lounge

Sometimes embracing the Tiki lifestyle can be a full time job. However, when I’m not at home making Tiki drinks or out hitting up Tiki bars, I like to ride my Vespa. I live in Seattle and luckily there is a pretty large scooter scene here. It’s no lie: it rains in Seattle a lot! We get most of the rain during the fall and winter months, but once the rain starts to slow down, you can bet there’s going to be a scooter rally going on! Starting in May, there is some kind of scooter ride every weekend. Here is a picture of me with my Vespa…

Ray with Vespa Rally 200
Ray with Vespa Rally 200

You might be thinking, “What do you do when it rains?” Well, since you have a couple months before the scooter season starts up again, most of us use that time to work on our bikes and get them ready to ride for spring. A fun idea is to have a wrenching party. The idea is that everyone brings their bikes over to a someone’s garage and everyone works on their bikes together. Someone usually brings beer, someone else brings some music, and others bring their expertise. It’s always a great time and it’s fun to just hang out even if you have nothing to work on.

My good friend Don lives in a neighborhood called Ballard. Ballard is a really cool neighborhood in Seattle because it’s all single homes. Most of them have garages. It’s been a while since there was a wrenching party in Ballard, so Don set one up.

Well, guess what happened? On the night of the wrenching party, it rained and it rained hard. Pretty much everyone cancelled out and said they weren’t going to make it. Everyone except me, that is.

I made it up to Don’s place and knocked on the door. I think he was a little surprised to see me, let alone anyone, because of the rain. He welcomed me in. Since it was just the two us, there wasn’t much of a point in wrenching. We established that the wrenching party would be put off for another day when it wasn’t raining!

I asked Don, since it was just us, “What do you want to do?” He said, “Well, I have a Tiki bar down in my basement. Do you want to check it out?” I said, “Hell yeah!”

Don at The Aloha Lounge
Don at The Aloha Lounge
bars stools
bars stools

The story goes that Don wanted to buy a bar of some kind for his basement. He found this bar for sale and he had it brought in from another home. You wouldn’t guess that because he built it into the wall and included a little sink. It looks flawless and the bar looks like it was part of the house!

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He named his bar the Aloha Lounge. Don has used the Aloha Lounge for parties and to host some scooter club meetings.

The bar is well stocked with books and alcohol…

Booze and Books behind the bar
Booze and Books behind the bar

It also has more bitters than you could ever ask for!

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Don even went on to change the handrail going down to the bar into Bamboo! I love subtle touches.

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Well, no scooters were worked on that evening, but Don and I had a couple drinks instead. I’m glad I came up. Don’s bar is awesome. Next time there is a wrenching party, while everyone else is getting dirty working on scooters, I’ll be hanging out at the bar!

Don and Ray at The Aloha Lounge
Don and Ray at The Aloha Lounge

2 thoughts on “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #1 The Aloha Lounge, Ballard, WA

  1. Cameron LaRue

    What a cool idea- stocking tons of different bitters so you can make different bitters and sodas for those times when you aren’t in the mood for a stronger drink!

    • Ray Wyland Post author

      Totally agree. Fee Brothers makes a bitters sampler kit. It comes with 6 different flavors. All taste great!

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