Tiki Room, Boston, MA (bar)

Name:Tiki Room
Type:bar
Street:1 Lansdowne Street
City:Boston
State:MA
Zip:02215
country:USA
Phone:617-351-2580
Status:operational

Description:

I'm surprised no one's ever posted anything about this place. It's right behind Fenway Park. We went right after it opened a couple years back. The interior looked great, the bartenders all wore Hawaiian shirts, and though my drink came in a SVEN-TIKI mug it didn't taste very good and was VERY pricey. I believe a Scorpion Bowl was twenty-something bucks! Has anyone been there recently? Worth going back? Most of the decor came from the late AKU-AKU in Cambridge (now Jasper White's). I was sad when the AKU-AKU closed but glad to see its inventory being put to good use.

Ah, this place was the original inspiration for starting the band WAITIKI. The Tiki Room opened up in June, 2003. Right after I finished college. I got home from a trip, Space Kadet and I were watching "Password" reruns on Game Show Network, and he told me that a tiki place opened up on Lansdowne. Which was about a 5 minute walk from my place at the time. I think I groaned, then said

me: "a tiki place?"
space kadet: "you know, haole hawaiian places. like da kine get in waik's"
me: "so?"
sk: "maybe they need live music. we go, play"
me: "shoots"

we went down there that night to go check'um. i think it was only the 2nd tiki place we'd each been in. cuz he'd played at the closing of kahiki's with don tiki. and i had accidentally wandered into luau hale (in lenox, ma), hoping to find some plate lunch or hawaiian food, five thousand miles away from home.

WAITIKI never played there as a quartet, but we did get hired as a duo: uke & bass. One show, about 45 minutes. It sucked. the room's not set up for live music. The drinks are awful. They have smores, that you can roast over a volcano flame. But the Lansdowne/Lyons Group (that's the firm that owns all those properties there) vibe sucks. Nowadays, it's fairly similar in theme to Tequila Rain, which is right next door. Except that Tequila Rain is bigger, and has a dance floor. TMoX played a gig at Tequila Rain once. (I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but I did! Hahahahaha). I haven't set foot in the Tiki Room since our gig there, December 2003.

It's worth noting that, before we gigged there, we advised the manager Daren about what kind of music to play. We burned him a couple CDs with Denny, Lyman, & Don Tiki stuff we had around, and he had that stuff playing pretty constantly for 3-4 weeks. (How many modern tiki bars do you go in, that have classic exotica playing?) That was until upper management told him to put top 40 shit on. Egad.

If you've never been, I don't suggest you go. You'll be disappointed.

Well, I just went to Fenway the other night and the Tiki Room is no more. The space is now a Mexican restaurant. From the outside it looks heavy on the "From Dusk Til Dawn" Tex-Mex decor. They kept the dried-grass covered awnings but where, oh where, did all that beautiful tiki decor go?

[ Edited by: Thunderlips 2007-05-17 08:34 ]

Damn,

I would have liked some of those lamps!

The place kinda sucked though. Crappy cocktails, crappy food, crappy music.

Im not surprised that its gone.

I was just at Monday's game and didn't even go down the street to see if it was still around.

On 2007-05-17 08:33, Thunderlips wrote:
Well, I just went to Fenway the other night and the Tiki Room is no more. The space is now a Mexican restaurant.

I went there about a month ago and the change over had just taken place. (within a week or so).
For what it's worth, the Mexican food was awesome......

This placed S-U-C-K-E-D when I visited it in 2005 or so... Cool decor, but too "commercial" for me. No character, very expensive and not good at all, so I'm kind of happy that it's gone. I just hope that I'll be able to forget it some day...

Boston Tiki room postcards



For trade

That craphole actually had postcards?