Ikitnrev visits rennovated congatiki room

The CongaTiki room has been expanded and rennovated and
we were honored to welcome Vern for the grand opening
7/14....here is Vern with one of my drum buddies Menster
Brown

This is the Wahine Weenie hamming it up a little

and some general lounge shots



Northern Wisconsin is well off the beaten Tiki path...
but yer all welcome!

[ Edited by: congatiki 2005-07-15 17:38 ]

I am so proud to be from Wisconsin!!! Nice job, it looks so good. Believe me, I know how hard it must have been to get all the supplies. Get ready for some crazy parties, "If you build it they will come"! :drink:

Looks to cool. Love the bird

Congatiki, my compliments to you on your workmanship, it looks like a wonderful place to imbibe.

thanks Finkdaddy...Thanatos and Fez Ape (Love the user
name)...still needs a little work but a lot of fun! Still
need some Finkdaddy and BenZart creations before I can
rest!

Looks like you have already Done lots of work there. Nice looking room. Where did you get the carvings, is there a carver up there (Cough cough)?

hi Ben...no carvers way up here...unless you are looking
for bear or birds...I know this guy who does a little
"whittling" on the side....

I still cant believe that it used to be a garage. Excellent work. Now I have gargage/bar envy!

thanks rodeotiki...just to set the record straight...
the tiki lounge itself was designed into the new garage
project a few years ago...we only expanded into the garage
a little bit (5 feet by 10 feet) to create the new bar
area...i would like to take credit for completely
rennovating a garage into a tiki lounge...but that's
not the case. But I sure spend a lot more time sipping
mai tais and drumming in the tiki room...than I do looking
at the storage space that I lost through the expansion.
When you come to Wisconsin...put Antigo on the itinerary!

Just saw this post conga! Excellent job! Love the cravings, and some day I'd like to make a thatched over hang like you did. I can't seem to get the hubby motivated enough to build it forme and I'm not quite sure how to build it myself. Was there much involved with building and attaching the frame?

[ Edited by: exotica59 2005-07-20 19:23 ]

Hi Exotica...you are welcome too if you ever venture up
north. The framing was really pretty simple..but not so
simple that I could do it myself. We basically determined
the position of the long posts and then hung them from
the ceiling on ropes. We then cut shorter support pieces
and screwed them into the existing wall...and into the
hanging posts. After attaching the ends to the walls..
(hard to explain after a couple of drinks) it became stable
enough that we could eliminate the ropes...but we like
the way they look..so we left em there.
As an aside...the Mensters have completed a few more
tracks and I'll get a cd off within a couple of weeks.

On 2005-07-20 19:30, congatiki wrote:

As an aside...the Mensters have completed a few more
tracks and I'll get a cd off within a couple of weeks.

Yay!! I would love to hear it!

Will send a copy with your painting Finkdaddy...gonna
get it finished....next week....like your entry in the
pier contest too finkdaddy...I get the feeling we will
get together pretty soon.

Great bar, conga. Thanks for sharing the pics.

One of the better decisions I made during my recent vacation was to journey up to Antigo, so I could visit Congatiki. The space he has created behind his garage is really quite incredible - the mix of the natural wood wall paneling really complements the collection of tiki artifacts and percussion instruments he has gathered. Congatiki not only is a great host - he is also a form of a Northwoods tiki renaissance man, as he does his own carvings, does his own paintings - even his lampshades, and gets together with friends and records their own music CDs, creating such compositions as 'Monkey Suite'

I felt as comfortable and relaxed in his tiki space as any other tiki bars I have visited, and the futon in the room folds out to a very comfortable bed. I was pleased to see on display a print of Esqui Fu Manchu mug (#1) - the same print (#6) that I had purchased from earlier in the week.

I believe I may have established a personal record, for the mai tai I consumed at the northernmost latitude. It was a fun evening - we had several drinks, and then we rotated the various percussion instruments between us, and jammed away. I've decided that I will sometime soon buy one of those African thumb pianos - Congatiki - what brand/model was the one that I was playing?

My only regret is that I timed my visit to arrive on Thursday rather than Friday, and thus the festivities had to end a bit early, and I missed out on the opportunity to do further jamming with the mai.

here are some of my pictures ....

Mr and Mrs Congatiki

The Mensters, of soon to be Northwoods percussion fame.

The following is a carving I discovered on the outskirts of Antigo - a tall totem pole, with a somewhat Polynesian feel to it. Was this an inspiration of yours, Congatiki, or something you did in your youth? I stopped, and the owner said that it was carved about 25 years ago.

It was quite tall - the pole rested on the ground, yet rose over the roofline.

and some individual face closeups

The good thing is that the Congatiki recipe is only about 90 minutes north of where my parents live, so I hope to make future visits someday.

Vern

[ Edited by: ikitnrev 2005-07-23 13:23 ]

Thanks for the kind words Vern...you and other Tc members
are always welcome. I can't believe the totem pole tiki...
where in the heck is that? We really enjoyed your visit.

I forgot to mention that Congatiki had a front page article written about him and his tiki bar in the local Antigo newspaper, that appeared less than a week before my arrival. I was impressed - it included two color photographs. Unfortunately, that article is not on-line.

Congatiki, that totem pole was probably within the city limits, on a road that I took on the way out of Antigo (on my way to Laona). I was driving north when I saw it, and it was on the right hand side of the road - before you reach the Wal-Mart (It was located across the street from some auction house and some motel that had a neat 'MOTEL' neon sign with a red background and a green arrow.

Vern