page_title: Tiki bar
section_title: Design and aesthetics
hierarchical_section_title: Tiki bar / Design and aesthetics
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Poignées tiki de l'entrée du restaurant Jardin Tiki à Montréal. Photo prise le 13 mars 2015. English: Tiki statues as door handles at Jardin Tiki, landmark restaurant in Montreal. Photo taken 13 March 2015.
context_page_description: A tiki bar is an exotic-themed drinking establishment that serves elaborate cocktails, especially rum-based mixed drinks such as the Mai Tai and Zombie cocktails. Tiki bars are aesthetically defined by their tiki culture décor which is based upon a romanticized conception of tropical cultures, most commonly Polynesian. Some bars also incorporate general nautical themes or retro elements from the early atomic age.
  Many early tiki bars were attached to hotels or were the bar sections for large Asian restaurants. While some are free-standing, cocktail-only affairs, many still serve food; and some hotel-related tiki establishments are still in existence. Large tiki bars may also incorporate a stage for live entertainment. Musicians such as Alfred Apaka and Don Ho played a historically important role in their popularity, and also book acts with other exotica-style bands and Polynesian dance floor shows.
context_section_description: The interiors and exteriors of tiki bars often include tiki masks and carvings, hula girl motifs, black velvet paintings, large tropical murals, live plants or palm trees, bamboo, grasscloth, tapa cloth, and similar fabrics, torches, woven fish traps, pufferfish lamps, glass floats, and the use of rock and lava stone. Indoor fountains, waterfalls, or even lagoons are popular features.
  Beyond Don Beach and Victor Bergeron, Stephen Crane was a well known promoter of the early tiki style, and was hired by Sheraton Hotels to design their Kon Tiki chain of establishments to compete with Hilton's Trader Vics. An early menu from his The Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills outlines where he got the materials for its decoration, including "chairs from Hong Kong", "Monkey pod furniture milled in Papaaloa", "structural bamboo hand-wrapped by Philippine craftsmen", "Chinese soapstone", the shells of "man-eating clams from the Indian ocean", and mentioning other materials from Nepa, Niiu, Samoa, Tahiti, Fuji, and of Tonga-Tabu origin.
  "Mick" Brownlee was the main wood carver for Donn Beach in Hawaii. After 1956 many designs were also accomplished with original work from the company Oceanic Arts, co-owned by Bob Van Oosting and Leroy Schmaltz in California, which imported materials and did original wood carvings. The tiki aesthetic was also refined by restaurant designers Clif and Lou Sawyer, who took part in over 360 design projects including at The Luau, Don the Beachcomber (Palm Springs, AZ), The Reef (Casper, Wyoming), and the Pago Pago (Tucson, AZ).
  Separate side rooms are employed, one of the earliest being "the black hole of Calcutta" as used by Donn Beach. Some of the biggest tiki restaurants are designed as large open air spaces with cavernous ceilings that allowed for the construction of separate areas with exotic names. The "cannibal room", "kon-tiki bar", "scorpion's den", and "trader's hut" could all be collected under one roof. Some like the Chin Tiki were multiple-level affairs, requiring patrons to climb stairs or cross bamboo bridges to get to other sections. The Kahiki Supper Club in Columbus, OH advertised as "The world's most elaborate Polynesian Supper Club" in Life Magazine and even provided its own interior map. This allowed keeping dinner show areas secluded away from more private drinking lounges, and lent to the "experience" by making patrons feel they had been transported away to an entire village. Limited windows or the use of fake windows with dioramas is done for similar reasons.
  Live animals are sometimes present. The now closed Bahooka Tiki bar was famous for its over one-hundred fish tanks.
  The look of the establishment's menu, swizzle sticks, matchbook covers, and cocktail napkins can be extremely important design considerations for tiki bars. These add to the exotic destination immersion and feel for the bar and are taken home by customers where they then become a form of outside advertising.
caption: Jardin Tiki Door Handles
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