Post #448052 by GatorRob on Sun, Apr 19, 2009 6:11 AM

On 2009-04-18 10:11, St Tiki wrote:
OUtfitting a tiki bar gets tricky because there are alot of purchasing of artifacts etc.

This statement is a little confusing. In what way is it tricky? If you have an interior design of the bar on paper from either your own hand or from a professional designer/architect that matches your budget, it's simply a matter of acquiring and installing the materials. Unless you're planning a trip to Papua New Guinea or Tahiti in search of real artifacts, you're going to turn to known suppliers like Oceanic Arts or Benson's Imports and (hopefully) experienced builders and installers like Bamboo Ben. There's nothing tricky in dealing with these businesses. They've been outfitting tiki bars for years. Decades in the case of OA. So I'm really not following what you're asking for.

What seems far more tricky in opening a tiki bar is whether the location, the area's demographics and the local competition are favorable to supporting a tiki bar. Not to mention whether this is going to be a modern tiki bar or a classic one; an emphasis on high volume, high markup drinks served by young low-skilled bartenders (shudder) or hand-crafted cocktails expertly mixed by highly skilled bar chefs.

I wish you the best of good fortunes.

EDIT: I don't mean to oversimplify the issue with my "it's simply a matter of..." statement. I'm aware there are local codes and ordinances you have to comply with and I'm sure that can be quite tricky to navigate. But that's true for any restaurant/bar.

[ Edited by: GatorRob 2009-04-19 06:19 ]