Post #120309 by Joai on Tue, Oct 19, 2004 6:17 AM

There is a tiki spot with nearly all the original decor intact (except for tikis) but it is no longer a tiki bar. The restaurant is India Palace and it's on the top floor (11th) of the Howard Johnson's near Lambert Airport.

As soon as you walk in off the elevator, you encounter a full lava rock wall fountain with a pool at its base. There's a pedestal where a Ganesh idol stands but I imagine it held a tiki at one point. As soon as you walk in the door to the dining area on the right of the waterfall, look at the door trim on your right and you'll see a tiki carving that someone failed to remove.

Once in the dining area, you can see booths with thatched roofs and tapa-looking wallpaper on the wall. There are also outrigger lamps and other clearly tiki lamps that appear identical to the kinds listed in the BOT. The dining area also has large windows overlooking the airport where you can see planes come and go.

There are also fake aquariums built into the back wall although they are currently not on.

In the center of the restaurant is a bar with lava rock walls. If I remember correctly, the wall behind the bar still has netting, shells, lobsters and other props you used to find in old school tiki bars.

As a lifelong tikiphile, this place is definitely worth a visit and I go there from time to time, especially to whet my appetite for an occasional visit to Chicago (the tiki capital of the Midwest). Also, if you like Indian food, this place is generally regarded as the best in St. Louis in several reader polls (the chicken tikka is my favorite).

As far as what this place used to be, I asked the manager and he confirmed that it used to be Polynesian but he couldn't remember the name. I know that there's a Waikiki Supper Club at a Howard Johnson's in New York, so my current theory is that it may have been one of those.

This is really your best hope in St. Louis. I can confirm that Terry's is closed and in a life-threatening part of town. Also, Venice Cafe is nothing like a tiki bar. It's more like a T.G.I. Friday's on acid.

Here are two links about India Palace.

http://www.digitalcity.com/stlouis/dining/venue.adp?vid=63874

http://stlouis.citysearch.com/profile?id=5720888

Maybe it will find its way into a revised version of Tiki Road Trip