Home Tiki bars: where should you build one?
Most of the time, someone’s Tiki escape is down in the basement or maybe in the garage. For Sweetie Suz and her husband Dave, it’s in their living room! Why limit your love of Tiki to some spare bedroom when you can show it to everyone who walks through the door? This is the story of the Streamlined Tiki…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #21 The Streamlined Tiki Medford, OR”
When you start collecting Tiki mugs, one turns into two, then two turns into three, and pretty soon you have an army of Tiki mugs trying to take over your house! What can you do? You build a home Tiki bar to display them! Rhonda and Bill Reedy did just that. They converted their basement into the Porthole and Tiki mugs are proudly displayed on shelf after shelf that spans its length. Here is Rhonda and Bill’s story…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #20 The Porthole Portland, OR”
Fun fact: Calgary is known as Cowtown! Even though Calgary is in the heart of Alberta, Canada, it has a cowboy/country feel to it. They even have a rodeo called the Calgary Stampede. You wouldn’t expect to see denim, daisy dukes, and cowboy hats in a metropolitan Canadian city. You kniow what else you wouldn’t expect to see? An awesome home Tiki bar! It’s called the Kanaloa Lounge and the man behind it is Aubrey Hallis. Here is his story…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #19 The Kanaloa Lounge Calgary Alberta, CA”
Adrian Eustaquio has been living the Tiki lifestyle for a long time—since the ’90s, to be exact. If anyone knows what Tiki is supposed to be, it’s Adrian. When it came time build his own bar, Adrian had a vision of what a proper Tiki bar should be and his place is truly outstanding. The Desert Oasis Room is so outstanding that it has been photographed for Hana Hou, which is Hawaiian Airlines own magazine! In fact, all the pictures used for this post are from professional photographers Kamala Kingsley and Mike Remmel. Here is Adrian’s story…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #18 The Desert Oasis Room Corona, CA”
“Oh little town of Bethlehem…”
Bethlehem is one of the cities that make up the Lehigh Valley in eastern PA along with Allentown and Easton. For a long time, steel was Bethlehem’s main export, but the days of Bethlehem Steel’s reign are long gone. You may not find much steel in Bethlehem nowadays, but what you will find is a Tiki powerhouse in a man named Andy Panda!
Andy Panda has his own Tiki blog, his own Tiki radio station, and his own Tiki podcast. All are incredible. What also is incredible is A. Panda’s Tiki Lounge…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #17 A. Panda’s Tiki Lounge Bethlehem, PA”
“Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same…”
If your familiar with the TV show Weeds, you’ve heard this song sung by Malvina Reynolds. The neighborhood Malvina was singing about was actually Daly City and she describes it perfectly. All the homes are literally square boxes that are different pastel colors and built on the side of a hill. Hidden in one of these “square boxes made of ticky tacky” lies the Alta Tiki Lounge.
Buz Deadwax is the proud owner of The Alta Tiki Lounge and here is his story…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #16 The Alta Tiki Lounge Daly City, CA”
Remember that old saying “as the crow flies?”
It meant the actual distance between two points via a straight line. The town of Olalla is only 15 miles away from Seattle, but that doesn’t mean it’s close—let alone easy—to get to. The Puget Sound stands between Seattle and Olalla, which means you have two ways of getting there: taking a ferry or driving around and below the Puget Sound. A ferry trip is not cheap, so that means driving is the best way to get there. Why all the fuss about getting to Olalla? Because Debbie and Mark Whitehead live there and down in their basement lies the Fuzzy Smudge…
Here is Debbie and Mark’s story…
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #15 The Fuzzy Smudge Olalla, WA”
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”
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #13 The Shangri-La 66 Seattle, WA”
The late ’80s/early ’90s was a great time for music and no, I’m not talking about grunge! There started to be a renewed interest in music from the Mid-Century, music like jazz, swing, exotica, surf, and lounge. It was mostly punk and alternative types that re-discovered all this great music and leather jackets and boots were replaced with suits and skinny ties.
Russell Scheidelman is one of these punks who got turned on to this great music from the ’60s and went head-on into the Seattle lounge scene. Russell is one sharped-dressed man who channels Andy Warhol and John Steed from the Avengers.
Continue reading “Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #11 The Blue Flamingo And The Bowler Hat Club Seattle, WA”
