New Jersey

Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #114 Rita’s Lost Weekend – Matawan NJ

Posted by Ray on in Home Tiki Bars
Rita's Lost Weekend

Remember that movie Escape From New York?

Once you got in, it was hard to get out. But in reality, it’s quite the opposite. If you want to drive into Manhattan from New Jersey you have only three options: Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel or the George Washington Bridge. If you want to take a train in, you got two ways in, NJ Transit or you can take the PATH train.

So, if you want to tiki and you live in New Jersey, what do you do? You don’t escape to New York, you build a tiki bar in your garage and escape there! This is exactly what Shanna and Johnny did and here’s their story…

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Tiki Triangle – A Book About Tiki And Tiki Cocktails by Justin Cristaldi

Posted by Ray on in Tiki Cocktails, Tiki Lifestyle

Visiting your first tiki bar and sipping your first Mai Tai can be a life changing experience. It was for me and for many others who fell in love with tiki culture. As you start to get more and more into tiki, you realize that there’s so much to discover, there’s tiki art, fashion, escapism, mugs and last but not least, cocktails. Tiki Triangle by Justin Cristaldi is a great book to help you enter into this wonderful world of tiki. Tiki Triangle has chapters on the history of tiki, tiki’s connections to WW2, food, rum, ingredients and tons of tiki cocktail recipes!

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #69 Rodgers Reef 2.0 – Barnegat NJ

Posted by Ray on in Home Tiki Bars

James Rodgers lives along the Jersey Shore where there are tons of “tiki bars”, well not really. If you start getting into tiki, you realize there’s a difference between a true tiki bar and a beach bar. Both types of bars share many of the same elements like bamboo, thatch and even tikis! It all comes down to the vibe, tiki bars are supposed to be dark and mysterious, not bright and sunny. Since there aren’t any real tiki bars on the Jersey Shore, James built his own …

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Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #54 Tatooiniki – Maplewood, NJ

Posted by Ray on in Home Tiki Bars 1 Comment

We all know Star Wars isn’t Tiki and Tiki isn’t Star Wars, but can you combine the two?

I believe that answer is YES! Proof positive of a perfect example of a Star Wars themed tiki bar is Peter Haugen’s Tatooiniki. Peter combined elements of Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine and a classic tiki bar to create a truly unique space. Here is how his home tiki bar, Tatooiniki, came to be. A Long Tiki Time Ago, In A Tiki Galaxy Far, Far, Away …

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Tiki Blogging #8 Tiki Triangle – Justin Cristaldi

Posted by Ray on in Tiki Blogging

Tiki Triangle Justin Cristaldi

Tiki Triangle is my East Coast tiki connection …

Justin Cristaldi lives in New Jersey and blogs about all the tiki things going on in the Tri-State area. What I love most about Justin’s blog Tiki Triangle, is that he gives straight-up honest reviews of tiki bars and always recommends what you should and shouldn’t order. I have a soft spot in my heart for New Jersey’s three Chinese tiki bars: Lee’s, Chan’s Dragon Inn and Lun Wah, and you can find Justin hanging out drinking a Mai Tai at one of them. Here is Justin’s story …

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Tiki Bar Review #20 Lee’s Hawaiian Islander Lyndhurst, NJ

Posted by Ray on in Tiki Bars

Lee's Hawaiian Islander

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.”

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