The Polynesian (at The Pod Hotel), New York, NY (bar) - Locating Tiki

A AceExplorer Grand Member (8 years) Deep in the Jacksonville Flori-duh jungle. Joined: Apr 03, 2008 Posts: 2566	A AceExplorer Posted posted on Fri, May 18, 2018 1:54 PM Name:The Polynesian (at The Pod Hotel) Type:bar Street:400 West 42nd Street City:New York State:NY Zip:10036 country:USA Phone:212-254-3000 Status:operational Description: Opening delayed, but finally, on May 24th. It's not listed on the parent company's web site yet. I just saw this location on Monday, when I was in the neighborhood, but didn't know about the bar until today when I received an opening invitation from Brian Miller's mailing list. This is around the corner and a very short walk from The Foundry bar, Sardi's, Times Square, and Broadway. Tiki folks know Brian Miller from famous "Death & Company," "ZZ Clams," The Hukilau, and from various cocktail nights and events like "Tiki Mondays with Miller" in and around New York City. If you visit, you can post your thoughts and impressions here. The Pod hotel is very Euro-styled, so I'm happy about the prospect of some polynesian / tropical decor to break up all the minimalist monotony which so many New York places embrace. The group does make comments about becoming "the best," and the press picks up on "over the top" stylings of the restaurant group, so this could turn out nice. But if the drinks alone are good, dang, then I will gladly embrace it on that basis alone. I believe Brian Miller's presence in this venue carries quite a bit of weight - he knows true tiki and loves tiki cocktails. First, here's the invitation for the opening which is happily open to all. Then a few articles about the new place. From "cititour.com:""The Polynesian" is a new tiki bar from the Major Food Group located in the new Times Square Pod Hotel. 19 different cocktails and "tiki" drinks will be available, according to the New York Times, including one meant for sharing served in a huge clam shell on a cloud of dry ice. From "ny.eater.com:" Major Food Group Unleashes an Over-the-Top Tiki Bar in Midtown West Next Week The Polynesian will have large format drinks and a balcony by Serena Dai Apr 10, 2018, 1:24pm EDT Major Food Group — the love-em-or-hate-em restaurant crew behind The Grill — will open its outrageous new Midtown West tiki bar next week, a Polynesian island-inspired spot with a balcony called The Polynesian. The bar on the third floor of the new Times Square Pod Hotel, at 400 West 42nd St. near Ninth Avenue, embraces colorful cocktails and large-format drinks, including one in a fish bowl and one in a huge clamshell with dry ice, according to the Times. The drink menu here comes from Brian Miller, a ZZ’s Clam Bar alum and co-owner in the Polynesian who’s played a role in making tiki bars so popular. Besides over-the-top beverages, the mural-bedecked space will also have a large balcony overlooking Midtown, fitting a total of 200 people inside and out. Food will include snacks like crab rangoon. “My idea was Trader Vic’s meets ‘Mad Men’ meets ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’” Miller tells the Times. MFG also plans to open a location of Parm in the hotel on the ground floor. The Polynesian is the first tiki bar for the restaurant group, though ZZ’s Clam Bar has served tiki-esque drinks in the past. As with many MFG projects, the players are talking a big game here, with Miller telling the Times that “New York’s been waiting for it. And honestly, I feel like people have been waiting for me to do it.” Whether or not it becomes “the best tiki bar in the world” as MFG’s Jeff Zalaznick says he wants, at the very least the Polynesian will be one of the more ambitious bars to open near Port Authority and Times Square, an area with more tourist traps than anything else. Stay tuned for more. And from "nytimes.com:" A Grand Tiki Bar for a Less-Than-Tropical Island, Manhattan By Robert Simonson April 10, 2018 Manhattan is an island. It sits at the northern end of New York Harbor. The bartender Brian Miller, who with Major Food Group is poised to open a sprawling tiki bar — in Midtown West, just a block from a bus depot with “port” in its name — wants you to remember that. “I want to bring the Polynesian islands to the island of Manhattan,” Mr. Miller said. “Just because we live in an urban jungle doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate that we live on an island.” The Polynesian, which will open the week of April 16 on the third floor of the Pod Hotel Times Square on West 42nd Street, is New York’s latest attempt to embrace the tiki-bar revival. Past bars, most of them short-lived, have been small, even cramped affairs. The Polynesian will not be like that: Like most undertakings by Major Food Group, which owns Carbone and Dirty French, it is a tad over the top. “We are committed to making the Polynesian the best tiki bar in the world,” Jeff Zalaznick, a partner in Major Food Group, said in a statement, with typical restraint. The 4,900-square-foot, L-shaped space will have sweeping views of the city on two sides, and a balcony that equals the interior in size and seating — in all, room for 200 people. A private room in the back, where Mr. Miller will keep his considerable stash of rare and vintage rums, will evoke the captain’s table on a ship. The décor, by Vanessa Guilford, takes deep turquoise as its predominant color note, and includes large murals, teakwood floors, bamboo ceilings, a 30-foot-long lava-rock bar top, and cut-metal screens that evoke Polynesian masks. It’s an expansive vision of tiki culture the likes of which New York has not seen since the days of Trader Vic’s and the Hawaiian Room of the Hotel Lexington. “New York’s been waiting for it,” Mr. Miller said. “And honestly, I feel like people have been waiting for me to do it.” Mr. Miller, 47, is one of perhaps a half-dozen figures who spearheaded the recent tiki renaissance in the United States, and the only one without a bar. Instead, he has spread the aesthetic through an itinerant tropical party called “Tiki Mondays.” The event began in 2011 at the SoHo bar Lani Kai (since closed), and later put in time at the Gold Bar, Mother’s Ruin and Pouring Ribbons. He worked at ZZ’s Clam Bar, Major Food’s pocket-size cocktail and raw bar in Greenwich Village, and in 2014, the partners asked him to pitch his idea for a bar. For the presentation, Mr. Miller had leis mailed from Hawaii, and brought in an act called the Hula Belly Sisters. It worked. “My idea was Trader Vic’s meets ‘Mad Men’ meets ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’” Mr. Miller said. Food will include pu pu platters and what Major Food boasts will be a “best-of-class Crab Rangoon.” The four-panel folding bar menu, modeled after Trader Vic’s, lists 19 cocktails, four large-format shared drinks (one is served in a fish bowl) and two virgin cocktails. Among them are a few originals Mr. Miller has popularized over the years, like the Double-Barrel Winchester, which employs four different gins to create a panoply of flavors; the Fiddler’s Green, a cross between two classic tiki drinks, the Blue Hawaiian and the Montego Bay, served from a slushie machine; and the Smokin’ Sarong, a mélange of Scotch, coconut, tea and honey. Speaking of sarongs, Mr. Miller, who promises to be at the Polynesian every day for its first year, will wear one as host, just as he often did at “Tiki Mondays.” “Everyone knows I will be in a sarong,” he said. “Sarongs will be optional for staff.” The Polynesian, 400 West 42nd Street, Manhattan. (Edited to go back and correct some weird phrases in my intro.) [ Edited by: AceExplorer 2018-05-18 14:12 ]

Name:The Polynesian (at The Pod Hotel)
Type:bar
Street:400 West 42nd Street
City:New York
State:NY
Zip:10036
country:USA
Phone:212-254-3000
Status:operational

Description:

Opening delayed, but finally, on May 24th. It's not listed on the parent company's web site yet. I just saw this location on Monday, when I was in the neighborhood, but didn't know about the bar until today when I received an opening invitation from Brian Miller's mailing list. This is around the corner and a very short walk from The Foundry bar, Sardi's, Times Square, and Broadway. Tiki folks know Brian Miller from famous "Death & Company," "ZZ Clams," The Hukilau, and from various cocktail nights and events like "Tiki Mondays with Miller" in and around New York City.

If you visit, you can post your thoughts and impressions here. The Pod hotel is very Euro-styled, so I'm happy about the prospect of some polynesian / tropical decor to break up all the minimalist monotony which so many New York places embrace. The group does make comments about becoming "the best," and the press picks up on "over the top" stylings of the restaurant group, so this could turn out nice. But if the drinks alone are good, dang, then I will gladly embrace it on that basis alone. I believe Brian Miller's presence in this venue carries quite a bit of weight - he knows true tiki and loves tiki cocktails.

First, here's the invitation for the opening which is happily open to all.

Then a few articles about the new place.

From "cititour.com:""The Polynesian" is a new tiki bar from the Major Food Group located in the new Times Square Pod Hotel. 19 different cocktails and "tiki" drinks will be available, according to the New York Times, including one meant for sharing served in a huge clam shell on a cloud of dry ice.

From "ny.eater.com:"
Major Food Group Unleashes an Over-the-Top Tiki Bar in Midtown West Next Week
The Polynesian will have large format drinks and a balcony
by Serena Dai Apr 10, 2018, 1:24pm EDT

Major Food Group — the love-em-or-hate-em restaurant crew behind The Grill — will open its outrageous new Midtown West tiki bar next week, a Polynesian island-inspired spot with a balcony called The Polynesian.

The bar on the third floor of the new Times Square Pod Hotel, at 400 West 42nd St. near Ninth Avenue, embraces colorful cocktails and large-format drinks, including one in a fish bowl and one in a huge clamshell with dry ice, according to the Times. The drink menu here comes from Brian Miller, a ZZ’s Clam Bar alum and co-owner in the Polynesian who’s played a role in making tiki bars so popular.

Besides over-the-top beverages, the mural-bedecked space will also have a large balcony overlooking Midtown, fitting a total of 200 people inside and out. Food will include snacks like crab rangoon. “My idea was Trader Vic’s meets ‘Mad Men’ meets ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’” Miller tells the Times.

MFG also plans to open a location of Parm in the hotel on the ground floor. The Polynesian is the first tiki bar for the restaurant group, though ZZ’s Clam Bar has served tiki-esque drinks in the past. As with many MFG projects, the players are talking a big game here, with Miller telling the Times that “New York’s been waiting for it. And honestly, I feel like people have been waiting for me to do it.”

Whether or not it becomes “the best tiki bar in the world” as MFG’s Jeff Zalaznick says he wants, at the very least the Polynesian will be one of the more ambitious bars to open near Port Authority and Times Square, an area with more tourist traps than anything else. Stay tuned for more.

And from "nytimes.com:"
A Grand Tiki Bar for a Less-Than-Tropical Island, Manhattan

By Robert Simonson
April 10, 2018

Manhattan is an island. It sits at the northern end of New York Harbor. The bartender Brian Miller, who with Major Food Group is poised to open a sprawling tiki bar — in Midtown West, just a block from a bus depot with “port” in its name — wants you to remember that.

“I want to bring the Polynesian islands to the island of Manhattan,” Mr. Miller said. “Just because we live in an urban jungle doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate that we live on an island.”

The Polynesian, which will open the week of April 16 on the third floor of the Pod Hotel Times Square on West 42nd Street, is New York’s latest attempt to embrace the tiki-bar revival. Past bars, most of them short-lived, have been small, even cramped affairs. The Polynesian will not be like that: Like most undertakings by Major Food Group, which owns Carbone and Dirty French, it is a tad over the top.

“We are committed to making the Polynesian the best tiki bar in the world,” Jeff Zalaznick, a partner in Major Food Group, said in a statement, with typical restraint.

The 4,900-square-foot, L-shaped space will have sweeping views of the city on two sides, and a balcony that equals the interior in size and seating — in all, room for 200 people. A private room in the back, where Mr. Miller will keep his considerable stash of rare and vintage rums, will evoke the captain’s table on a ship.

The décor, by Vanessa Guilford, takes deep turquoise as its predominant color note, and includes large murals, teakwood floors, bamboo ceilings, a 30-foot-long lava-rock bar top, and cut-metal screens that evoke Polynesian masks.

It’s an expansive vision of tiki culture the likes of which New York has not seen since the days of Trader Vic’s and the Hawaiian Room of the Hotel Lexington. “New York’s been waiting for it,” Mr. Miller said. “And honestly, I feel like people have been waiting for me to do it.”

Mr. Miller, 47, is one of perhaps a half-dozen figures who spearheaded the recent tiki renaissance in the United States, and the only one without a bar. Instead, he has spread the aesthetic through an itinerant tropical party called “Tiki Mondays.” The event began in 2011 at the SoHo bar Lani Kai (since closed), and later put in time at the Gold Bar, Mother’s Ruin and Pouring Ribbons.

He worked at ZZ’s Clam Bar, Major Food’s pocket-size cocktail and raw bar in Greenwich Village, and in 2014, the partners asked him to pitch his idea for a bar. For the presentation, Mr. Miller had leis mailed from Hawaii, and brought in an act called the Hula Belly Sisters. It worked.

“My idea was Trader Vic’s meets ‘Mad Men’ meets ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’” Mr. Miller said. Food will include pu pu platters and what Major Food boasts will be a “best-of-class Crab Rangoon.”

The four-panel folding bar menu, modeled after Trader Vic’s, lists 19 cocktails, four large-format shared drinks (one is served in a fish bowl) and two virgin cocktails. Among them are a few originals Mr. Miller has popularized over the years, like the Double-Barrel Winchester, which employs four different gins to create a panoply of flavors; the Fiddler’s Green, a cross between two classic tiki drinks, the Blue Hawaiian and the Montego Bay, served from a slushie machine; and the Smokin’ Sarong, a mélange of Scotch, coconut, tea and honey.

Speaking of sarongs, Mr. Miller, who promises to be at the Polynesian every day for its first year, will wear one as host, just as he often did at “Tiki Mondays.”

“Everyone knows I will be in a sarong,” he said. “Sarongs will be optional for staff.”

The Polynesian, 400 West 42nd Street, Manhattan.

(Edited to go back and correct some weird phrases in my intro.)

[ Edited by: AceExplorer 2018-05-18 14:12 ]

Post #786949 by AceExplorer on Fri, May 18, 2018 1:54 PM