Headhunter's Lounge, St. Petersburg, FL (bar)

Name:Headhunter's Lounge
Type:bar
Street:10700 Gulf Boulevard
City:St. Petersburg
State:FL
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:unknown

Description:
Cocktail lounge inside the Thunderbird Motel.

I really don't know much about this place, but you've got to love these ads from the late '50s and early '60s:

All I could really find is that the Thunderbird Motel opened in 1958, and the Headhunter's Lounge was added in 1959. I found ads for the lounge all the way through 1963. Throughout the mid and late 1960s, the hotel went through a bunch of construction and renovations, so don't know what happened after that. I also found a 1963 article that briefly mentions the lounge, and a character there named "Ikky Woo Woo" - maybe the masked guy in the ad?

I did find some semi recent stuff on the web that referred to the lounge, so it may have only disappeared a few years ago. The Thunderbird Hotel site now lists one of the features being the "Ikky Woo Woo Tiki Hut", which looks really bad and no sign of tiki anywhere, but its interesting that they kept the same name. Anyone been there?

The iconic Thunderbird Beach Resort in Treasure Island, Florida, is closed for a complete demolition and total rebuild following catastrophic damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in late 2024. The historic 65-year-old hotel is being replaced with a new, more resilient 4-story, 106-room structure that aims to retain the original's charm and iconic neon sign. https://www.thunderbirdflorida.com/

Hopefully they'll also keep Ikki Woo Woo's Tiki Hut ... https://www.floridabeachbar.com/ikki-woo-woos-tiki-hut

Notice the white trim on the front of the building in that photo. That was put in during a wreckovation circa 2004. At the time, we were heavily involved in Treasure Island historic preservation. We pleaded with the then-owner to please not wreckovate this hotel. Before that, the Thunderbird had a distinct Vegas feel to the entire outside. Well, the owner didn't listen, didn't care, and the Headhunter Lounge was removed, the cool original street sign replaced with something more generic, and that awful white trim was put up on the outside of the building.

it wasn't always turquoise. That was a later change, and we think a good one. Newer ownership seemed more receptive to architecturally and historically appropriate design to the place. That's when "Ikky Woo Woo" came about, and it's a nod to the hotel's past. For many years the building was an off white, and it was hard to keep it looking clean, it seemed the bricks always had a "dingy" kind of look, just from dirt or weathering.

While the "Ikky Woo Woo" was more or less an outdoor hut, it was indeed inviting, and it was great the the owners embraced the history and feeling of this place. The back lanai and patios of the Thunderbird were really cool in recent years, before the Helene / Milton onslaught.