Post #33191 by boutiki on Tue, May 6, 2003 5:25 PM

I used to live in Tampa and have seen the place. If I remember correctly, it was called the "Tanga Lounge" but I could be wrong. It has been there for years, or at least since the mid 1980s. It had a cool A-frame facade, but I don't remember much else that was very tiki. I guess it could have been a former tiki bar, but I haven't seen any evidence of one in that location. There was the Hawaiian Village on Dale Mabry Blvd. (not that far away).

If memory serves, the Tanga Lounge was right next to the entrance to the Causway. I remember that it was owned by a guy, I think his name was Joe Espisito and he owned the nearby Mons Venus and the Oddesy 2000 (which had a very cool space-ship looking room on the roof). he was a real rabble-rouser back in the day and was always fighting efforts to restrict or close his strip bars.

Now, you may wonder why I know about all these strip clubs. Well...I have to admit to one night of weirdness when a friend of mine and I went looking for another friend who had fallen in love with a dancer who worked at these places. Since these strip joints were owned by the same guy, the dancers would rotate shifts at different clubs. Therfore, we had to go from one bar to the next looking for our friend (he would usually wait at the club 'till she finished her shift, then he would buy her breakfast at Dennys...I know, creepy).
Our evening began with a stripper asking my friend if he could take her home after work (and feeling him up!) and ended with his car overheating and melting the engine leaving us stranded on the freeway at 4:30 in the morning. A memorable night to be sure.

As far as tiki exploration goes, I'd say enter at your own risk.

[ Edited by: boutiki on 2003-05-07 08:25 ]