Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #75 Baron’s Bamboo Lounge – Vancouver B.C. Canada

When you have Rod Moore (The man who built The Shameful Tiki) help you build a home tiki bar, you know it’s going to be great! Beth MacNeil and Aaron Hicks just moved into a new home and the first thought they had was, let’s build a tiki bar! Beth and Aaron are good friends with Rod, so with his help, they got to work on transforming one of the rooms of the house into Baron’s Bamboo Lounge and the end result is truly stunning, it’s like a smaller version of The Shameful Tiki Room!

What is the tiki scene like where you live?

Aaron- Years ago there was a Trader Vic’s at the Westin Bayshore downtown but it closed in 1996. Since then, anything resembling a Tiki or Polynesian bar/restaurant was at the Waldorf Hotel until 2013 when the Shameful Tiki Room opened up. It has been the go to place for an authentic Tiki experience and has been incredibly popular and successful. There is another tiki themed bar downtown that opened in 2018 called Sneeki Tiki. I’ve been once and haven’t been back … it has a totally different feel and in my humble opinion doesn’t stand up at all against the STR in terms of décor or drink quality. Outside of that, there have been a couple of pop up tiki bars but mainly focusing on a rotating drink menu from what I understand and using other bars as their physical space, which doesn’t reflect any décor or thematic experience.

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

 Aaron- We had no experience with tiki culture growing up or even as adults other than some exposure to beach style tiki bars in Florida, California or Hawaii and even that was pretty limited growing up on the east coast of Canada. It wasn’t until around 2015 that a client of mine told me about this bar on Main St that he stumbled upon while out for a walk one day. He described this store front with a nondescript entrance and very little signage. It turned out to be the Shameful Tiki Room.

He ordered a Navy Grog and the way he described the atmosphere and décor really piqued my interest and curiosity so Beth and I made plans to visit. I think our first experience like any non-tikiphile was one of wonderment. We really weren’t sure what we were looking at but we both liked it instantly. Around the same time, friends of ours here in Vancouver had decided to build a home outdoor tiki bar of their own. It was such an interesting coincidence and from that point, we started to learn more about tiki culture together.

We’d try various drink recipes, search for unique ingredients and stumble on different bits of information about tiki culture. I bought my first tiki mug at the Shameful Tiki Room and immediately just enjoyed mixing drinks and drinking out of it. From there, we stumbled on the Tiki Kon event in Portland and immediately decided we needed to go and check this out. It was at that event in 2017 that we started down the rabbit hole and the rest is history. We met some of our closest Tiki Ohana at that first Tiki Kon event who all happened to be from Vancouver so we instantly got plugged into the local scene and everything just took off from there.

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

Aaron- After these early experiences at the Shameful Tiki Room, going to Tiki Kon and seeing all the amazing home bars and being plugged into the culture for a while, I just kept thinking how cool it would be to somehow have my own bar. I had started collecting tiki mugs, different types of rum and other little tiki themed art and paraphernalia and was running out of space to display it. Living in a condo in Vancouver doesn’t usually offer the luxury of extra space so I just continued to be creative with the space I had.

Last fall, Beth and I decided that perhaps it was time to change things up and we started looking at real estate. We finally decided on a new duplex which doubled the space we had at the condo. In exchange for agreeing to move, I was able to negotiate with Beth that we could use some of the space in our new place to house a tiki bar.

We moved in late March and because of the pandemic, we obviously weren’t travelling anywhere this year, so we decided to redirect our travel funds towards the cost of building a tiki bar. We had discussed the idea with our close friend Rod Moore, owner of the Shameful Tiki Room here in Vancouver. I wasn’t even sure Rod would be interested in doing it but after continued discussions about my vision, Rod agreed to do the build out and started at the beginning of August. We did the unveil on Sept 19th.

Any story behind the name of your bar?

Aaron- I honestly started out using that Tiki Bar name generator app just for fun to see what combinations of words would come up. I knew that since the bar was going to take over the space in our family room and that it would still be the main area where we relaxed, I kept thinking the name should have the word ‘lounge’ in it. As Rod started to build the bar, it became evident that a lot of bamboo was being used for the decor and I thought hmmm, perhaps ‘bamboo’ could be part of it.

Lastly, I wanted it to be representative of both Beth and I. Someone suggested one evening over drinks that combining our names might be a fun way to accomplish this and that’s how we came up with Baron (Beth + Aaron). We went through a couple of variations and finally combined all the ideas I mentioned into “Baron’s Bamboo Lounge”.

What is your favorite Tiki drink?

Aaron- I’d have to say the Jet Pilot. I mean, how do you pick just one? It’s been a real learning experience over the years discovering what drink profile I like. I think initially, I gravitated towards the sweeter drinks like a Blue Hawaiian or a Painkiller. Over time, after trying many different tiki drinks, I came to realize that I liked the spicier, slightly bitter and bolder recipes like the Zombie, Navy Grog and Jet Pilot. I like trying new recipes but I always keep ingredients on hand to make a handful of my favourites.

Beth- A Rum Barrel … it’s well balanced, drinkable, the garnishes are beautiful and who doesn’t like 13 different ingredients in their tiki beverage!

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

Aaron- Well, since I asked Rod to build my home bar in the spirit of the Shameful Tiki Room I think you know the answer to that question!

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

Aaron- Décor…décor…décor. You can never have enough of it. I really like classic tiki bar décor with lots of bamboo, thatch, flotsam and jetsam, burnt wood, tapa cloth, nautical, etc. … I also definitely think strategically placed lighting also really takes a tiki bar to the next level.

No outside light … I want it to be dim when I walk into a tiki bar and then let my eyes adjust. I want to forget about what’s happening outside. Of course, music like some exotica or surf at subtle volume levels is a must. I tend to gravitate towards and prefer some Martin Denny or Arthur Lyman.

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

Aaron- At the moment, we’re just going to enjoy it. Nobody knows for sure when this pandemic is going to end and when we will be able to return to normal life so we are going to embrace our new space. Obviously a tiki bar continues to evolve so I’m sure we’ll keep an eye out for some really cool additions to the decor but for now, we feel like it’s perfect. We look forward to welcoming more ohana when it’s safe to do so and the borders re-open. We can’t wait for people to see it in person. Rod has really put a lot of time, energy and detail into this. It deserves to be showcased and enjoyed.