Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #45 Ohana Gardens – Portland OR

Form follows function, but in the case of Jackie and Eric’s Ohana Gardens, it’s a different story. When you have a large backyard with plants, trees, bees, and chickens, you need tools and supplies, but more importantly, you need somewhere to store them. Jackie and Eric originally planned on building a storage shed …

They ended up with something way cooler …

What’s the tiki scene like where you live?

Portland has a thriving tiki scene with Tiki Kon being held each summer here with so many locals who volunteer to pull it off. We also have fantastic bars like Hale Pele and the Alibi as well as a few less-tiki bars like the Rum Club that have delicious rum-based cocktails. It’s sad that we lost Trader Vic’s because that was definitely a regular place for us to hang out.

What brought you into the ‘Tiki lifestyle’ and how long has it been part of your life?

Jackie- I think most tikiphiles mention that Gilligan’s Island had some influence in their lives. I know it sure did in ours. Then of course there are all of the Elvis movies filmed in Hawaii and the slew of other movies filmed there in the 50’s and 60’s so a lot of that pop culture was floating around in our subconscious. Then one day about 25 years ago while thrifting, I found a men’s orange barkcloth shirt that just exploded with brightness and colors. My ex-husband didn’t like it (he said it hurt his eyes) so I kept it but never knew what to do with it. I would occasionally wear it to a BBQ party for laughs. I just loved that damn shirt so much that I couldn’t part with it and I kept my eye out for other vintage items.  It was my gateway purchase into the tiki world and now I have so much barkcloth that my ex would probably have a heart attack if he saw all the chaos and color in my closet! When I met Eric, I gave the shirt to him and he loves it!  Clearly, a bright tiki shirt or dress is the true litmus test for a good relationship!

Can you give a little history of how it all came together?

When we bought our house in 2008, we had a master plan in mind for lots of gardening, chickens, and bees but we never thought about building a tiki bar … not at first. After we finally planted all of the trees and plants in the ground and got the chickens and beehive placed, we moved on to tearing down the rusted and beat-up aluminum garden shed in the back corner of the lot. At first, we were just going to build a basic storage shed.  Then on a native plant garden tour several years ago, we saw a house that had put bamboo molding on the outside of their garden shed. Yes, why not make a shed look fun and functional! We also decided to build ours with a lanai made with load-bearing bamboo poles to add some shady places to sit. So that’s what we were going to do but somehow, the tiki bug got us and we couldn’t keep the inside as just a storage shed. Pretty soon there was artwork, shelves, grass matting, and a banquette table. oops!

Any story behind the name of your bar?

We are so lame when it comes to naming things. For instance, our first chickens were: Red (Rhode Island red), Goldie (American golden), Rocky (barred rock), and Lacy (black lace). Our cats are Bob and Ralph. So, you can see, we get stuck and for four years we just called it the “Tiki Hut”. Then last summer, Greg Clapp from Tiki Kon came to a party and suggested we be on the next tour and asked us what our name was. Egads!!!  The pressure was on and we still weren’t very creative. We looked around and saw so many friends and family hanging out in our garden that we just came up with “Ohana Gardens”. Somebody had suggested “Paradise Gardens” but it sounded like a strip club name.

What is your favorite Tiki drink? Why? 

 Eric- Oh man, Jackie’s drink is a toss-up between the Trader Vic’s 1944 Mai-Tai or the Lapu Lapu at Hale Pele or The Royal Hawaiian. She loves the former because of its smooth and citrusy notes and the latter because passionfruit juice and rum just goes down so easily. It’s so dangerously tasty!

Jackie- Eric really misses the Trader Vic’s Kamaaina because his first love is gin. He enjoys rum but he also really enjoys the non-alcoholic drinks at Hale Pele. So tasty and you can safely drive afterward!

What is your favorite Tiki bar? Not including your own! 

We both adore our local Hale Pele! It is amazing. There are still a lot of tiki bars that we haven’t visited yet but of the ones we have, I think we really enjoyed our visits the most to Pagan Idol in San Francisco and Trader Sam’s at Disneyland (aka The Drinks ride!).

Outside of great drinks, what do you think are essential elements in creating the perfect Tiki environment?

Great decor and music!!  We love the Alibi and they have really up scaled their food and drinks but what’s up with metal music?

As to decor, we think people should decorate in whatever way inspires them but just be thoughtful about calling it correctly by what it is. Maybe what you really have is a beach bar because you like surfboards and palm trees? Cool. Go do your thing. Who are we to judge!? We have Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy tiki mugs (shout out to Geeki Tikis!) on a shelf in our bar.

What does the future hold for you and your home tiki bar?

Of course, we will continue to keep updating our bar just like everybody else.

It’s a sickness!

I’d like to thank Dieter Weber for his pictures used for this post!