Post #566925 by congawa on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 11:04 AM

John-O: thanks for coming to Puka Bar on Saturday, and thanks for the Zombie you bought me! Now I feel like I'm an actual small part of your Zombie Road Trip! And re: the Puka Bar, they have done quite a bit to dress up the back "band" room, which used to be just a plain box room in comparison to the exquisite bar room and foyer. It's actually got a tikified sound booth, which is a step beyond most tiki establishments in this region.

And the Wrigley district (the area where it's located) has gotten better in recent years, though--while industrial and blue collar--it was never the "worst" part of Long Beach by a long shot. It was pretty quiet on Willow Saturday night (the nightclub up the street the Til-2 was where the rowdy crowd usually was, but I think that place got a bit cracked down upon).

Here's one of the many differences between the "Tiki" crowd and the "Buffett" crowd: the Buffetts are used to seeing music in squeaky-clean amphitheaters and beach bars, so this locale might be "scary." However, many Tiki-philes used to go to gigs at places like LA's Al's Bar and Jabberjaw (or equivalent clubs in SF's Mission or SOM, NY's Bowery, or whichever city you're located in, etc.) where the big parking decision for the night was whether you were going to pay the homeless guy $1 to "watch" your car. There's nobody on the street to even make you that offer outside the Puka Bar, and there's usually has plenty of street parking--and if you get there in the afternoon, you can probably have a beer with a longshoreman or two.

Caltiki Brent