Post #272761 by Humuhumu on Fri, Dec 15, 2006 11:14 AM

I agree with your assertion, Sven, to a point... tiki bars have also always been about escapism. What has made tiki bars endure over time is that they're still providing that rare sense of escape to another world. Places to get drunk & screw are hardly hard to come by anymore.

Back then, they were escaping from a stiff, formal world into a place where they could drink a little more and become sensual savages. Tiki bars are the still the same escape today into drinking a little more and becoming sensual savages, but the world we're escaping from is hardly as stiff & formal. To me, tiki bars provide an escape to a place where sensuality rules over overt sexuality, where we can explore our savage side without sacrificing our dignity.

Where those merry souls who make drinking a pleasure -
Who achieve contentedness long before capacity
And who, whenever they drink, prove able to carry it, enjoy it,
And remain gentlemen.

Vic Bergeron may have been engaging in a bit of wishful thinking when he hung that in his bars, but it does illustrate what he wanted out of his place -- for men to still remain gentlemen. To me, it's a big part of the distinction of what makes a good tiki bar, and the get-drunk-and-screw tiki bars of today are missing the point.