Post #332630 by Bongo Bungalow on Sat, Sep 15, 2007 11:45 AM

I actually own, (with a few partners), 12 high-volume restaurants in the Midwest. They are not tiki, they are Mexican-themed restaurants.

We have full bars, (Cantinas), and we sell a lot of margaritas. (Not a favorite drink among tiki rum drinkers, I understand and it's OK. Me, I love both.)

I dream of opening a Tiki bar. And, when the time is right, I will.

Because I'm in this business to make money and to serve my employees and NOT to simply satisfy my fantasies, I will open a tiki bar in a way that will be very profitable.

How? Well, I believe the Midwest is under-served in Asian food. In our markets we have many Asian-family run, small Chinese restaurants. But we do not have any large, fully-themed, professionally run, fun, full service restaurants with great bars. So my plan is to partner with, or buy out, a small Asian restaurant, learn the food systems, then move it to a large facility in a hot location and satisfy a whole lot of fun people crazy about tropical drinks and Asian food.

The bar, then, will be tropical. I'll call it something like... The Typhooon Bar. I see lots of bamboo, palms, thatched roofs and TIKIs! You see, we're used to doing a healthy percentage of our business in alcohol. I can't envision a bar with a strictly Asian theme, how much saki are we going to sell? It has to be tropical to center it around great drinks and, you know, an island in the Pacific works within the theme, doesn't it?

Cruising around TC, I see examples of older tiki locations that have turned into Chinese small restaurants, so what I'm describing is not so outlandish.

The bottom line is: There is room for tiki bars to make a comeback with new investment, at least I think there is.