Post #185562 by pappythesailor on Fri, Sep 9, 2005 11:52 AM

Please forgive a topic this heavy coming from such a newcomer but this has been weighing on my mind. How fast are we losing tiki bars & restaurants? Tiki Road Trip was published only three years ago and I already can't find an alarming number of tiki joints in MA (where I'm unlucky enough to be from) gone to meet their ancestors. The Aku Aku, Honolulu, Hawaiian Village--history. Just the other day, CHRIS tells us the China Seas in RI is remodeled (read: gutted) right in the middle of this tiki revival of ours.

Remember the swing music revival a few years back? I thought it was to good to be true then and it was. Today pop music is worse than ever but for a brief moment, you could hear music that employed musicians on the radio before that whole thing busted. (Plus, did anyone like Big Bad VooDoo Daddy's second album?) Is this the same thing? Does this tiki revival have legs?

I'm those TCers living in Calitikifornia and Florida, the heart of the empire, are more insulated than we are out in the provinces when a tiki site falls.

So here are the questions that actually haunted my dreams last night:

How fast are we losing tiki? (Humuhumu?)
Am I just fretting about an obvious, irreversible course of events?
Is this all my fault for picking the Mandarin over the Polynesian restaurant all those times in the 90's?
Should I just stop worrying, buy a ticket to the Hukilau and enjoy it while it lasts?