Post #759465 by davidphantomatic on Sun, Feb 21, 2016 10:22 AM

About a month or so ago, my girlfriend and I were in Austin just wandering aimlessly and decided to stop by Isla.
The drinks were good but definitely not what I was expecting as I've seen them advertising as a tiki bar, which I don't think is completely accurate.
We tried their painkiller, which wasn't bad, but mine was a bit flat on the flavor.
The one the bartender made my girl friend was very good though.
I also tried their rum old fashioned, I know not tiki, which I was very intrigued by and was not disappointed.

Overall, it's a very nice bar and the bartender was very cordial, as we were the only two in the bar, and even let me taste some of the rums he was using in there drinks. But a tiki bar it is not.

Last weekend, on our Valentine's date, my girlfriend surprised us on a detour home by stopping by the Concrete Jungle.
This is a cool little spot and their drinks were very good, but again it's just not very tiki.

While I would go there again to grab a tiki cocktail, the vibe we got was that this place is just a hipster bar that serves tiki cocktails.

The current trend here is that there's no straight tiki bar, like a Frankie's or a Don's, which I think needs to be rectified very soon!