Recently I was reminded of Tiki Culture, restaurants and bars with a South Pacific theme. My girlfriend at the time, and I, liked to go to Kelbo’s on Pico Boulevard in L.A. In the '90s, we found it deliciously tacky and a lot of fun. The food was OK, too. Here’s a menu.
Now, I grew up watching old movies on TV. Movies like Bali Hai, Operation Petticoat (dad’s fave) and Donovan’s Reef. And TV shows like Gilligan’s Island and McHale’s Navy. Plus dad was in the 7th Fleet. So I had some exposure, if not to Tiki Culture per se, then to images depicting places in the South Pacific. As such, I kinda dig Tiki Culture. It puts into mind the days when travel was an adventure. Who wouldn’t want to hang out on a tropical island, drinking ‘exotic’ drinks?
Seeing the old menu from Kelbo’s (which has prices about half of what I remember), the food doesn’t appear to be very Polynesian. Very sweet BBQ sauce on pork ribs? Sure. Pineapple? Of course. But my fading memories, bolstered by the linked menu, indicate the rest of the food was your basic mainland BBQ fare. I don’t even see rice on the menu. One Redditor notes that there’s no Hawaiian mac salad, no loco moco, and no SPAM®. The attraction of Tiki Bars was the drinks. Singapore Slings, mai tais… Anything alcoholic and fruity that you could put an umbrella in and serve in a Tiki-shaped (or often, skull-shaped) mug.
Is Tiki Culture tacky? Yes. Is it culturally insensitive? Oh, definitely. Did it have good food? Well… some people thought Kelbo’s had the best ribs. We went there for the atmosphere more than the food. It’s a bit like going to the Rainforest Café or the Blue Bayou at Disneyland. The fantasy is the attraction.
I love Tiki Culture! Besides wearing extremely loud Hawaiian shirts 365 days a year, I have quite a collection of tiki mugs and all the other crap associated with the times. The eventual plan is to turn the sun room into a home tiki bar. Of course, I have to put my own twisted spin on it. My favorite set of tiki mugs are these, for example.
There’s a great entry on tiki culture and “Polynesian” food in The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste which gives a history of it. I grew up with lots of “Polynesian” restaurants nearby (which my parents went to, but never took us kids yo. They’d bring us back the parasols from the drinks, though.) There are quite a few of them still around (like the Kowloon restaurant on Route 1 north of Boston, built in the shape of a giant Polynesian hut), but they’re giving way more and more to Chinese restaurants that have no pretensions to being Polynesian.
Growing up in Southern California, I was convinced that bowling was imported from the South Pacific. Any bowling alleys, garden apartments, diners, movie theaters, etc, built in the 1960s in Southern California had even odds of featuring some weird Polynesian feature in its design.
I too was a kid in SoCal during the heyday of Tiki culture for grown-ups.
I’m struggling now to remember the name of a famous Tiki joint on Harbor Boulevard in IIRC Garden Grove near Westminster Blvd. Definitely on/near the SW corner of a major cross intersection. Dated from the early 1960s or maybe even late '50s and probably torn down in the 1990s. Not “Trader Vic’s”, not “Don Ho’s”, but in that ballpark.
“Driving” the area in Google StreetView now the whole area is unrecognizable.
You’ll all be pleased to know that Tiki culture is alive and well today in SoFL. This famously over-the-top joint has suffered the double whammy of COVID and a flood and may not survive. But was going strong just before that:
I’ve spent many a lazy afternoon at this less hardcore Polynesian, but equally thatched-roof and umbrella-drinked establishment: http://letstikitiki.com/
I could keep going for hours about tiki-themed watering holes around here. We could certainly arrange an epic TikiDopeFest once it’s more fun to travel again.
Many, many detached houses have thatched tiki huts in their backyards, tacky Jimmy Buffett décor, and rum in the bar freezer.
When we moved into our new home 7 years back, they coulda filmed an episode of Mad Men in it. Foil wallpaper, love beads, etc. But the highlight was an orange and turquoise tiki bar in the rec room. REALLY debated before pulling it.
Here in Chicago there was always Trader Vic’s downtown. Haven’t been in a while but I suspect Hala Kahiki in River Grove and Chef Shangri-La in Riverside are still rocking.
Over the last year, I did a lot of reading on the history of the South Pacific cargo cults and the Tiki Bars…
All while drinking lime and rum concoctions. I needed one drink a little sweeter …to counteract all the bitters and rum(s) in it… and all I had was maple syrup.
… And that, kids, is how the ‘Minnesota Tiki God’ was born.
Kona Hawaii in Santa Ana, I think. I remember going there to see some surf bands in the early-eighties and lots of lame jokes about what was on their poo-poo plater. I played video games at Kona Lanes in high school. My mom now literally lives on the site of the now-gone Kona Lanes in an over 50 community. I think there was even a Polynesian themed car wash somewhere on Harbor Blvd.
The part of “Tiki Culture” coming to the US in the 40s and 50s that I found intriguing is how one culture will get SO enraptured with another. Imagine the obsession that Europe had with “Chinoiserie”, where suddenly upscale mansions would be completely redecorated to look like “The Orient” (sic). Or how European and American High Society became obsessed with Egyptian motifs (after King Tut’s tomb was found and displayed, I’d assume).
Or the oddest offshoot of that: the mansion that would combine them room-by-room. They’d have “The Egyptian Vestibule” and “The Louis XIV Wing”, and perhaps later, the Papeete Parlor…
What I loved about the Tiki “fad” is that it wasn’t just rich people. Lowly WW2 infantrymen or navy guys (like my father) were the first to experience it, and the Tiki bars that sprung up weren’t hoity-toity at all.
Kona Hawaii is probably not the name I’m not quite remembering, but it may well be the same facility in a different incarnation. I bowled a lot of games at Kona while in Jr high (TeWinkle '72) & high school (Estancia '76). They put up the Edwards Cinema multiplex & the Ice Chalet next door just as I got to high school. The then-single Edwards on the north side of Adams dates from more like 1964.
We still have a Tiki-style Asian restaurant, “Chef Shangri-La,” a couple of miles away. It was founded in 1976, and I don’t think it’s ever really been remodeled – it still has the wood-covered walls and tiki-style pendant lamps. They call their menu “Asian Fusion,” though there’s little on it that feels particularly Polynesian – it’s mostly the sorts of dishes you’d expect to find at an American Chinese restaurant. But, they do cool tiki drinks in the fun glassware, and, up until COVID, they still had live music (mostly Hawaiian) on the weekends.
I play in TWO Tiki themed bands. One is Hapa Haole music, which is primarily Tin Pan Alley songs about Hawaii. The other is what I call Tikibilly, basically rockabilly with ukeleles and songs about Tiki subjects.
The Tiki culture is definitely alive and well. Some folks collect Tiki mugs, some are about the decor, some are about the drinks, clothes, music, etc. I know several people with full on tiki bars in their home, including an entire backyard in one case.
Where I live (Napa, CA), there are several Tiki bars in easy driving distance. Forbidden Island, The Kon-Tiki and the Kona Club in the SF east bay, too many to list in San Francisco, and of course Trader Vic’s in Emeryville. Trader Vic’s is still run by Vic’s granddaughter. We play shows at Trader Vic’s on occasion.
Every year in San Diego is Tiki Oasis, a Tiki convention that takes an entire hotel for a weekend. Live shows, Tiki drinks, craft shows and room parties with huge bars (FREE!) and live music. My buddy and I started our current band there by playing in the elevator after our show (with another band) went badly.
We’re finally getting a Tiki bar here in Napa. It’s under construction now. I hope they hire live music.
