The bar at Rhum Portland (Maine) Prepares To Open

The bar at Rhum Portland (Maine) Prepares To Open
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t_HZ7Mn_8U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCC6m3cFp6I

Did not want to put this in locating tiki because I'm not reaaly in the know on this one.

But it's odd nobody posted anything here on TC bout it.
or maybe they have and I missed it.
Looks like they put some large dollars into it.

While it's not done yet the tiki is sparse and some of what you can see is Pier 1
like stuff.
Is a Giraffe tiki?
Oh well we will see, they need more tiki lights that is for sure.

Hey Rhum Portland (Maine) bar Three words, Amber light bulbs, that was a freebie.

here's a link to Eater article on them:
http://maine.eater.com/2015/9/18/9351839/rhum-tiki-bar-portland-maine-confirmed-jason-loring-fifth-food-group

and what their mugs will look like:
http://maine.eater.com/2015/12/15/10160646/rhum-tiki-bar-mugs-portland-maine-photos#5560881

The mugs are cool.
Thanx for adding that.

So your from broken arrow?
Is that not code for an accidental nuclear event involving nuclear weapons, warheads, or components but which does not create the risk of mass death?

Or maybe a different broken arrow?

that is code for that, however in my case it just means a broken stick with feathers

On 2016-02-07 12:57, tikiskip wrote:
The mugs are cool.
Thanx for adding that.

So your from broken arrow?
Is that not code for an accidental nuclear event involving nuclear weapons, warheads, or components but which does not create the risk of mass death?

Or maybe a different broken arrow?

Here is another article on Rhum...
Open now?

Looks like they did not find those amber light bulbs.
Lets hope it was flash for the camera.
http://pierce.bangordailynews.com/2016/02/07/home/portland-tiki-lounge-opens-in-the-heart-of-winter/

Mai Tais on draft?!? WTH is that?!

On 2016-02-08 10:03, JenTiki wrote:
Mai Tais on draft?!? WTH is that?!

I'm more worried about the Jungle Bird "on draft." The bar back looks rather cheap: $99 Costco wire shelving that I have in my garage. Hope the place is a success though.

They did spend tons on the kitchen can see that.
The tiki décor is not so great.

"Hope the place is a success though"

Have heard that we should support any tiki bar from a local here as it's
"the right thing to do"
For me not going to support anything that sucks.

This place is new, and I do hope it works out because any good tiki bar is a good thing.

Dam Rhum lighting is important in any bar, the lighting in the videos burns yer eyes looks like.

Rhum bar article states the operation is a "refined take on Tiki". These guys could really use a Humuhumu Tiki bar seminar!

On 2016-02-08 10:03, JenTiki wrote:
Mai Tais on draft?!? WTH is that?!

I've seen cocktails on draft more and more. Lei Low here in Houston have their Mai Tai and version of a Dark and Stormy on draft.

On 2016-02-08 10:50, Thortiki wrote:
Rhum bar article states the operation is a "refined take on Tiki".

Tiki has not only been revived, but it is also being re-invented in both "good" and "worse" flavors.
We see that there is evolution going on, and it's not necessarily good. Hell, we have that damned Jimmy Buffett "Florida tiki" to contend with here, so some de-evolution of tiki is no surprise. It just makes the good authentic guys look so much more good.

On 2016-02-08 11:27, AceExplorer wrote:

On 2016-02-08 10:50, Thortiki wrote:
Rhum bar article states the operation is a "refined take on Tiki".

Tiki has not only been revived, but it is also being re-invented in both "good" and "worse" flavors.
We see that there is evolution going on, and it's not necessarily good. Hell, we have that damned Jimmy Buffett "Florida tiki" to contend with here, so some de-evolution of tiki is no surprise. It just makes the good authentic guys look so much more good.

I saw that in the article as well. I feel the only thing you can do is just keep directing friends, old and new, to good Tiki. I have had great success when I have taken the time to explain what Tiki really is all about and not act like an elite and make fun of them.

Roger that, El Jefe!

I'm still thinking about this... A tiki bar in Maine? A W E S O M E !! Maybe they'll start out like this, taste some success, and then be able to refine it some more. You never know when a proprietor has a really shoestring budget, or is afraid to commit and has to wait a while. So I'm really of the opinion that we should support and help these guys. For all we know they're reading this thread (I'd be googling my new place) and learning from us. On the other hand, if they don't care about the tiki, and it's just about making money and having fun, then they may not change much if at all. Let's hope they at least don't have sports TVs and pool tables.

Q: "Hey Quasimodo, how do you think the new 'refined' tiki bar in Portland Maine is going to do?"
A: "I don't know, but I have a hunch!"

The problem with "refined take on Tiki" to me is those places mostly look
like a new Starbucks with a few tiki thrown in and some float lights.
Plus for me the old grungy tiki is my style.
That or Mai Kai/ Kahiki.

Then ya got the ten dollar or more drinks.
Would rather have not so great drinks at half that price and drink all night.

Have found that when you mix sweet and sour with other stuff it's ok for a bit,
say few hours.
But if it stays mixed for long the acid may kinda taint the drink.
So if they burn through the drinks and don't keep the mix long it may be ok.
Chi Chis (Mexican) here put the Long Island ice teas on a gun, they were good.

On 2016-02-08 11:46, AceExplorer wrote:
Roger that, El Jefe!

I'm still thinking about this... A tiki bar in Maine? A W E S O M E !! Maybe they'll start out like this, taste some success, and then be able to refine it some more. You never know when a proprietor has a really shoestring budget, or is afraid to commit and has to wait a while. So I'm really of the opinion that we should support and help these guys. For all we know they're reading this thread (I'd be googling my new place) and learning from us. On the other hand, if they don't care about the tiki, and it's just about making money and having fun, then they may not change much if at all. Let's hope they at least don't have sports TVs and pool tables.

---

Q: "Hey Quasimodo, how do you think the new 'refined' tiki bar in Portland Maine is going to do?"
A: "I don't know, but I have a hunch!"

I agree Ace. I nominate you as the Tiki Central New Bar Outreach Ambassador.

On 2016-02-08 11:49, tikiskip wrote:
The problem with "refined take on Tiki" to me is those places mostly look
like a new Starbucks with a few tiki thrown in and some float lights.
Plus for me the old grungy tiki is my style.
That or Mai Kai/ Kahiki.

Good points, Skip. I can see someone doing "minimalist tiki" and pulling it off well, but it's tough if you don't have the right lighting and the right amount of organic matter in the design. Otherwise it could just be some sort of hideously stark Miami-esque design.

Compared to the other carved figures typically used, Moais were not as prominent in the mid-century tiki scene. However moais are quite minimalist when held up to other carvings. A nice "moai lounge" with subdued lighting where you can relax, drink, and socialize would be awesome. I'm thinking Las Vegas or Miami or New York......

I agree with your like of "grungy tiki." Anyone who has been to one of the great old tiki palaces can recognize it immediately. That's what you need to relax, drink, and socialize, and this is quite enjoyable, therefore also repeatable for customers, and potentially successful in the long-run. Everyone should have a place like this nearby. If not, then thank the tiki gods that we can make small enclaves within our own homes.

Does what I wrote make sense? :)

I think "refined tiki" is what the ill-fated Tiki Hideaway here in Charlotte was going for, although he called it "Trader Vic's meets Mad Men." It doesn't work. It's trying to be two different things and succeeding at neither. I think of "refined" and "tiki" as being mutually exclusive, at least when it comes to decor, but not drinks. Tiki bars should be dark, cluttered, mysterious, and have a "collected" feel about them. On the other hand "refined tropical" I can get behind since tropical doesn't necessarily mean tiki. For my tastes, the space is too large and open. I want little nooks and cozy spaces in a tiki bar, not a big hard surfaced warehouse feel. Even at the quite large Trader Vic's in Emeryville, the little nook at the back end of the bar area is the space everyone gravitates to if your party is small enough.

And really, I just can't support a bar that's not making its Mai Tais fresh.

On 2016-02-08 11:49, tikiskip wrote:
The problem with "refined take on Tiki" to me is those places mostly look
like a new Starbucks with a few tiki thrown in and some float lights.
Plus for me the old grungy tiki is my style.
That or Mai Kai/ Kahiki.

Then ya got the ten dollar or more drinks.
Would rather have not so great drinks at half that price and drink all night.

Have found that when you mix sweet and sour with other stuff it's ok for a bit,
say few hours.
But if it stays mixed for long the acid may kinda taint the drink.
So if they burn through the drinks and don't keep the mix long it may be ok.
Chi Chis (Mexican) here put the Long Island ice teas on a gun, they were good.

I understand what you mean with the Starbucks comparison. It can seem sterile if not done correctly. While I like the style of the places you mentioned best I can appreciate some of the more modern scaled back places.

On 2016-02-08 12:01, JenTiki wrote:
For my tastes, the space is too large and open. I want little nooks and cozy spaces in a tiki bar, not a big hard surfaced warehouse feel. Even at the quite large Trader Vic's in Emeryville, the little nook at the back end of the bar area is the space everyone gravitates to if your party is small enough.

Jen, this is what the Trader Vic's in Portland Oregon has done well. They've got a corner lot, but they've broken up the space with organic/tropical themed dividing elements. You're in a large restaurant, but depending on where you choose to be seated, you can have a very intimate evening at your table, even if you're at the bar.

Moais?
The tiki they have are from Indonesia I think, you know that World Market crap.

So they got Octopus, Pirate, tiki with a Giraffe on it, that wall paper the green stuff with the crossed bamboo and brass pineapple lamps on the walls.
It's a miss mash of styles for sure and not in a Bahooka kinda way.

May look good in dim light but dam they don't seam to have that either.

Three Dots was said to be "minimalist tiki" and was all ready to hate that, but that place was awesome when we went.

Maybe they will knock it out of the park without our two cents.

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2016-02-08 12:23 ]

Bummer! Still hoping they'll do well business-wise and learning-wise. They will come interact with other tikiphiles, no doubt, and it may provide new and better ideas.

The wallpaper sounds hideous, like something I would have found at my grandma's home. Maine is a different mind-set, it's a unique part of the country. So this tiki stuff may be groundbreaking for their locale. I hope to see some more photos and trip reports here in the near future.

"The wallpaper sounds hideous, like something I would have found at my grandma's home"

YES! that's it!
In the grandma's bathroom no less, maybe a sun porch.
Here it is you judge.
Man I know most tiki spots won't fit my mold, but this one is kind of a mish mash.

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2016-02-08 14:14 ]

Upon entering:

1. Twenty+ permanent fixed luncheonette bar stools, who needs rattan

2. Don't think James Brown or Eric Burdon were into Tiki.

3. IF the thatch falls down they could hang some harpoons.

This establishment may need a Humuhumu/Bamboo Ben Tiki consult.

On 2016-02-08 14:13, tikiskip wrote:

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2016-02-08 14:14 ]

I kinda like the pineapple light, but that wallpaper is horrendous. The lattice isn't bamboo and those flowers look like they might be plumeria, but only with a big stretch of the imagination. Ugh!

I retract my earlier comments.

That wallpaper is a whole 'nother level of awful. There is no amount of drugs - prescription or psychedelic - that could ever make that either tiki or tolerable.

However, I do quite like that pineapple lamp fixture. And I'm also now wondering: what DID James Brown think of tiki...?

Personally I like the wallpaper, yes I said it, I LIKE it!
In the photo, the bricks are painted black and a brownish-grey color and there's only one little wall sconce, that tells me that part of the room most likely won't be brightly lit. Throw shelves and artwork on top of the paper, it becomes much more subdued and more of a background.

The pineapple sconce can be purchased, see my screen capture below. I did a Google search for "pineapple wall sconce" and clicked on the "shopping" tab.

From the photo of the wallpaper and the light, the problem I see is that both the light and the wallpaper are very "busy" looking. Both get visually "lost" together. While the wallpaper is cool in a way, my preference would be to keep the light and tone down the wallpaper with a different design, or even better, use some kind of woven thatch wall covering.

My apologies to the Rhum bar -- I want to be constructive and helpful. But I was curious enough to look up that light fixture and share its availability with others here.

I was going to say it looks like a Bar Rescue job but they would never pay 105.00 for that pineapple sconce!

This is a Neo Tiki bar. Not a Tiki Bar.

My 2 cents.

Ben, I thought of you when I wrote my post, figuring you'd have a heart attack if you saw this combo.

Good call on it being Neo Tiki, and I know they're not done yet. Regardless of how "good" or "bad" a project like this is, I'm glad that tiki is still inspiring people to do things, and they're trying to create something people will enjoy. As cold as it gets there in the winter, I hope they succeed in creating a little tropical paradise and will be successful. Regardless of the interior, I hope they ensure that at least some of their drinks are high quality.

Don't like it when you can see the light bulb myself.
Unless it's one of those Edison bulbs, they have a soft glow to them.

They have like 15 five star ratings from what one would guess is the soft opening
since they were there before the first day they were open.

So at least their friends like the place.

I'm not a fan of that wallpaper or sconce, but I wish them luck.

Here are some new vids of Rhum.
The wallpaper is in the barthroom.
And the TVs with fish videos are cool really.

Did notice that they have reviews from December like months before they
opened or did a soft opening.
Something smells fishy and it’s not the TVs.

Did look not so bright in new Vids.

Rhum Food + Grog (Portland, Maine) Walkthrough. Part 1 of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RZ7Ko46M3g

Rhum Food + Grog (Portland, Maine) Walkthrough. Part 2 of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP5EmDMSbeE

Rhum Food + Grog (Portland, Maine) Walkthrough. Part 3 of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVruCByAghE

We've discussed fake reviews before -- by the new owners of the old Bahooka space on Yelp. Except in their case it drew a bunch of criticism and often funny replies, many of which were deleted by Yelp.

On 2016-02-11 07:51, tikiskip wrote:
Did look not so bright in new Vids.

The first vid you linked to has a note in the description: "My apologies for the dim lighting. I inadvertently disabled the spot meter on the GoPro which makes the bar area quite dark." So it may still be brighter than it looks in the videos.

Any follow-up on this place?

Looks like its scoring so so reviews on yelp:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/rhum-portland )-:

I wouldn't put too much faith in yelp reviews.

How many times have they been sued for extortion? 5+ times in their 6 years in business?

[ Edited by: lunavideogames 2016-04-17 12:55 ]

And some of the good reviews are from a FEZ wearing group.

"Good times and definitely worth a return trip. Photos linked below.
Remember to show them some love on Facebook folks! That seafood tower was on the house after all"...
Who's going to rip on you after $80.00 or so dollars of free seafood.

If your reviews are so-so and you have this group padding your reviews, then reviews may be even worse in reality.

The local bar here gets this kind of help with reviews and still has kinda not good reviews after the padded good reviews.
Bad service is a constant rip they get as well, the locals who love the place are the ones who keep other regular customers from getting service as they chat with the help.

The owners should look at the reviews and try to fix the problems that the every day customer states.

Make your tiki bar actually a great place to go, fake reviews from your friends and tiki nutz won't keep your place in business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDlR_ccnZww

Yeah I saw that and it is funny.
Plus it's true that not all customers are right.
But when you have a pattern of bad reviews like say service is bad, well that
probably holds water.

And in these cases it's the fake good reviews that are greater in numbers.
Can only guess they are fake but some came in when they were not open and the one site says "hey we got something free give them good marks".

We had many regulars at my restaurant and they all said great things and that's nice, but if you have a problem and they let you know you can fix it so that a person who does not know you won't never come back because of said problem.

We had soup at our place and the cook forgot to turn on the warmer but none of the four people who got kinda warm soup did not tell us as they did not want to offend us, but hey that is an easy fix and we want to know about things we can fix.

Even the bad things we can't fix like my crazy sister.

I think pointing out the bad stuff can be helpful.

BUT I never yelp or do Facebook reviews just so ya know.

Certainly feedback is helpful! Businesses should listen to it.

Seems these days that people only take the time to post negative reviews, even though the other 100,000 people had a great experience they might not have posted any reviews. I have found that when people post negative reviews, they tend to lie about at least one aspect of the review to make it sound a little worse than how the transaction actually happened.

I do not write reviews either and I try my best to never talk badly about any tiki bars. I will promote the good bars and ignore the bad ones. Even with my Instagram account, I made an early decision to not post negative remarks about places, I just won't promote the places that are not good in my opinion.

"I try my best to never talk badly about any tiki bars. I will promote the good bars and ignore the bad ones. Even with my Instagram account, I made an early decision to not post negative remarks about places, I just won't promote the places that are not good in my opinion."

I know I have not been great to this one but one I don't feel this is really a tiki bar, and two I have said some good things as well.
But heck I have never even been there.

Also the one place that was in town some people were saying "this place is great"
But it was not that great and myself I did not want to say "this place is great" and have folks come all the way from say far away and go "thanks for wasting my time".
But they did get better and in the end still went out.
Too bad towards the end it was a at least good tiki bar.

I just read the Yelp reviews and they're all over the place from 1 to 5 stars.

I have heard statements like...
"support any Tiki Establishment! It's the right thing to do!!

So this begs the question, is it the right thing to do?
Having a "tiki" bar that sucks and may have bad drinks that cost a lot, or bad décor, service ect.
Does this have a chance of making those who do not know tiki say "wow that sucks" "why do people like that"

Or if tiki bars fail over and over will people wanting to open a bar say I'm not going to do tiki as they mostly fail.

Could Crappy tiki become what tiki is now seen as?
Redefine it in a way.

Does any of this matter?

For me a "tiki bar that sucks may as well be Party City as I'm not into that.
AND while talking about Party City that's "tiki" should we support that too as "It's the right thing to do!!"

Buffet is "Tiki" support that too as "It's the right thing to do!!"

Good luck Tiki Barber, I support you as "It's the right thing to do!!"

Remember Adam Ant, Cyndi Lauper were called "punk", and punk died shortly after that.

Just food for thought.

On 2016-04-18 04:47, tikiskip wrote:
I have heard statements like...
"support any Tiki Establishment! It's the right thing to do!!

So this begs the question, is it the right thing to do?
Having a "tiki" bar that sucks and may have bad drinks that cost a lot, or bad décor, service ect.
Does this have a chance of making those who do not know tiki say "wow that sucks" "why do people like that"

Or if tiki bars fail over and over will people wanting to open a bar say I'm not going to do tiki as they mostly fail.

Could Crappy tiki become what tiki is now seen as?
Redefine it in a way.

I struggle with this as well. I really don't want to encourage the non-initiated friends to go to "bad" tiki bars, because I want them to understand what tiki is, not the bastardized version that some bars claim is tiki. I cannot in good conscience support a bar that degrades the genre.

I have coworkers come to me and say "Hey, I had drinks at a tiki bar this weekend!" First I ask what tiki bar they're referring to. Usually the answer goes something like this: it was this little bar on the beach with a thatched roof and a sign that said it's a tiki bar. Generally these places serve margaritas and brightly colored slushy daiquiris. I then take the time to patiently explain that it's not a tiki bar just because the owners choose to call it that, and try to explain the difference(s).

I just really don't want people thinking that crap is tiki! I'm also afraid that when a really good tiki bar does open, the people who've been only to the bad ones will assume the new one is also bad and won't bother to go.

I think we should all do our part to nudge bar owners in the right direction if we're in a position to do so, but if they can't be budged, take our tiki business elsewhere.

I would hope the owner does take Yelp reviews to heart. IMO its the Joe & Jane average that would keep this place in Portland ME in business.

And they're closed:

http://www.pressherald.com/2018/01/02/no-more-room-for-rhum/