Post #79510 by tikibars on Fri, Mar 5, 2004 6:31 PM

I've been looking for Tiki in my hometown of Cleveland for many, many years (I have lived in Chicago since 1993).

Aside from the long-closed Kon Tiki Ports, a strangely lost land-locked Sea World, and two Tiki-dive bars in the far eastern suburbs, I have had no evidence, of Cleve-O Tiki, ever.

I was there this week helping my dad clean out his attic (he and mom are moving after 32 years in the house), and I went out for a drink with my buddies on Wednesday night.

Most of them headed home early, but my ol' pal Rose decided I had to go to 80s night at the Phantasy, an ancient punk club that has been open for decades.

The Phantasy has a large concert venue on the ground floor (I cannot even begin to list all of the punk and new wave shows I saw there in the 1980s), and a smaller venue upstairs.

The upstairs venue is interesting because there is a giant half-scale pirate ship, broken in half, in the room.

The lighting board is on one half of the ship, and the sound mixing board is on the other.

For many, many years, circa 1983-1992, I went to shows in this club, and never paid attention to how really cool it is that there is an almost life-sized pirate ship crammed into this small 2nd floor nightclub.

It also astounded me and floored me and confused me that somehow, during the hundreds of times I went to this place during my wasted youth, I failed to notice the FIVE FOOT TALL WITCO-INSPIRED TIKI FOUNTAIN IN THE DOORWAY!

My tiki god, I had gone to this club for years as a kid, and never made note of the Tiki! Was I fucking high (errr... don't answer that - I probably was!). Or is it a new aquisition? Did someone just pull it out of the basement, or was it sitting there by the door all those years...?

And after spending the past decade scouring Cleveland for Tiki every time I went there (2 to 3 times per year, family being there and all), I never would have thought that I'd finally score a Tiki find right under my nose, right in my old stomping grounds.

And then I began to put it together... a big Tiki... pirate ships... and hey, that bar does look pretty vintage... and those articificial plank-roofed 'shacks' on either side of the room... and this place has been here HOW long? It was already run down in the early 80s...

Is my old 1980s punk rock stomping grounds actually the new incarnation of the mythical lost Cleveland Tiki Bar?

Could life work like this?

Could all of the stars align so precisely?

Stay tuned... I am working on answers...