In the August 2005 issue of East Bay Monthly (a free glossy publication - still available at newsstands) there's an awesome article about Tiki Culture, past and present and features our very own Conga Lounge, Trader Vics and Tonga Room, as well as Berkeley's Temple Bar (with quotes by Otto von Stroheim and Monica "Tiki Goddess")
Here's the article:
Mainland Mahalo
Can’t afford the ticket to the islands? There’s nowhere like the East Bay for a stateside dose of Tiki culture.
by Brian Kluepfel
As first appeared in The East Bay Monthly, August 2005
Thank god the Tiki bar is open
Thank god the Tiki torch still shines
Thank god the Tiki bar is open
Come on in and open up your mind.
—John Hiatt, “The Tiki Bar Is Open”
The Tiki bar craze rolled like a soft wave over the American cultural landscape in the 1940s and ’50s, embracing the escapist and exotic zeitgeist of the postwar era. It began in Hollywood in 1934, with the world-famous Don the Beachcomber’s bar—a castaway’s dream, with fishing floats, sea turtles, and all the spears, masks, and idols that gave Tiki bars their name. Later, Don’s original
location would close, and a facsimile would open in Disneyland—but not before the kitschy combination of Polynesian carvings, fishing flotsam, exotic food and drinks,
and a new music dubbed “Exotica” had become all the rage.
In the late ’30s, Victor J. Bergeron, Jr. renamed his Hinky Dink bar on 65th and San Pablo “Trader Vic’s,” notable as the
legendary home of the Mai Tai. Across the street on San Pablo arose the Frank “Skipper” Kent’s Zombie Village, with driftwood doors, Easter Island–like idols, palm trees, and philodendrons. Soon the Bali Hai blossomed in downtown Oakland. The war
was over. The drinks were flowing. And the East Bay was Tiki central.
“You think of beaches and moonlight and pretty girls,” Vic “Trader Vic” Bergeron is quoted on the bar’s Web site. Bergeron went to the great Tiki bar in the sky at age 82. “It’s complete escape.”
After the war, you couldn’t escape the escapism of Tiki. In The Apartment (1960) and The Harder They Fall (1956), actors like Fred MacMurray, Shirley MacLaine,
and Humphrey Bogart sipped drinks from coconut shells and
hid from mobsters while Tongan gods peered down ominously from the walls. Then the sun set on the Polynesian tide in the 1970s and ’80s. Tiki bars closed faster than you could say Bora Bora—but people like Tiki News editor Otto von Stroheim kept the embers alive. “I was born and raised in Southern California,” says San Francisco–based von Stroheim. “The Tiki bar is part of my roots.”
The generation that remembered the classic Tiki bars of its youth is now behind a South
Seas–flavored revival, and once again, here in the East Bay, Tiki madness reigns supreme.
South Africans Michael and Mano Thanos may not have grown up surrounded by Tiki birds and flowers, but they fell in love with Tiki-themed bars upon moving to Northern California
in the late ’80s. Michael, who came here in 1989, loved the
late, great Tiburon Tommies in particular, but, as he notes, “the ’80s and early ’90s were dark
days for the Tiki bar.”
But they never forgot the fun they had under those fake palms, twirling little umbrellas in their frosty drinks. After 15 years’
success with Café Rustica in
Oakland, they decided to start
a South Seas party upstairs in Rustica’s College Avenue building. The Conga Lounge recently celebrated its second anniversary.
Beneath a giant mural of the Easter Island moais, the island’s volcanic rock statues, Michael
describes the vibe of his new joint. “Conga Lounge is a celebration of all things Tiki, as well as all things retro” he says. “We’re paying homage to the Tiki spirit,” he says, handing me a vintage
Zombie Village menu.
One thing you won’t find at
the Conga is televised sports. Paul, who bartends at the Conga Lounge, says, “People come in asking to watch the game, and I tell them to go across the street to Walt and George’s.” Though they have a television, the only thing that plays on it is a loop of "Tiki" scenes from Elvis’ Blue Hawaii, Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Brady Bunch and I Love Lucy.
Pacific breezes waft off the Conga’s well-done cocktail menu. No premade mixes here—it’s all fresh ingredients, and as close to Trader Vic’s original Mai Tai recipe as possible (see recipe on page 11). But the house specialty is the Gilligan’s Island, a heady concoction of coconut rum, banana liqueur,
and fruit juice (even Mrs. Howell looks good after a few of these).
The menu also features a variety
of appetizers, including delicious shrimp and crab cakes.
Mano, the chief mixologist of
both drinks and music, spins Exotica, a type of light jazz mixed with bird calls, vibraphones, and other island percussion. In tunes by Martin Denny recorded at the Shell Bar of Henry J. Kaiser’s Hawaiian Village Hotel in Honolulu, Denny added frog noises and otherworldly percussion to his mixture of Latin, South Pacific, and American jazz sounds.
A framed cover of Denny’s breakthrough 1959 single “Quiet Village” adorns the Conga. The bar also has live Hawaiian music and dancing
on occasion.
While the Conga Lounge is brand-new in the Tiki universe, San Francisco’s Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel is a classic of the genre. The bar staff wear traditional Hawaiian-style shirts, and giant carvings from Tonga dominate the bar (sadly, the flat-screen television for sports fans kills some of the vibe). Starfish on fishing wire dangle from the bar’s bamboo roof, and the pink umbrellas in the watered-down drinks mirror the three-foot across umbrellas behind the bar.
Many early Tiki bars were inside Chinese restaurants, and the Tonga Room has stuck with that tradition, offering a Chinese buffet. The drinks have great names, like the Tonga Itch, the Tonga Tart, and the Bora Bora Horror. They’re all, sadly, rather poor.
But there’s no place like the Tonga for atmosphere. Every 20 minutes, the skies above the bar’s
indoor pool open up, and the calls
of monkeys and birds echo as an
artificial rainstorm pours from the roof. A charming-but-cheesy pop band plays on a floating stage in
the middle of the pool, pumping
out disco and other retro hits. It’s a tourist trap, for sure, but it’s also the only place I’ve ever seen a woman wrapped in a burka boogeying to Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell.”
Solemn-faced Tiki statuary was born in the Polynesian islands
as sacred images carved into stone or wood. Is it possible that American Tiki is a bit disrespectful of the original icons?
“Tiki people are not making
fun of island culture,” says von Stroheim. But it is true, he says, that the revival of Tiki iconography and artwork was born here in America, not the islands. “We’re looking to Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic,” he insists. “Guys who carved Tikis that didn’t match up with
the original stuff.” Von Stroheim, who curated a show of modern Tiki artists at San Francisco’s Shooting Gallery last fall, claims that few Polynesian people have complained about American Tiki.
Indeed, an artistic revival of American Tiki has been as important in its resurgence as the quickly multiplying Tiki bars themselves. West Coast artisans like Bosko, Crazy Al Evans, and Ken Pleasant are making mugs and other items that pay tribute to Americana as much as Polynesiana.
But some do feel that modern Tiki might not be so harmless. Paul Kealoha Blake of the East Bay Media Center, which provides community access to video and other media technology, was born in Maui. “In some ways Tiki is a very benign and kitschy phenomenon,” says Blake,
a patron of Berkeley’s Hawaiian-owned Temple Bar. “I don’t think there was an outward malevolence, but it’s important to remember that it emerged at a time . . . when the [true] culture was being eroded.”
Blake doesn’t think other religious iconography would get treated in such a casual manner and sees Tiki as an extension of the “marketing and idealizing” of Polynesian culture.
“We don’t have the Star of David hanging from these bars or make a game out of it like, ‘You get a rusty
nail at the first Station of the Cross.’ ”
Monica “the Tiki Goddess” Cortes-Viharo, who, with husband Will Viharo, runs the Parkway Theater’s classic Thrillville series (replete with cheesy monster movies and the like), chimes in on the
“respect” aspect.
“I’m Native American, and there was the Hippie thing in the ’60s, where people followed the ‘native way’ and wore moccasins and jewelry. To some Native Americans that might seem offensive,” she says. “But Tiki is not white guys in the suburbs trying to be Hawaiian. It’s taking what they loved [about island culture] and reinterpreting it in a very fun way, taking just the joyous and exotic part of it.”
She notes that the Tiki spirit
livened up the dreary 1950s—
notable for the homogenization of American culture—tract homes and cookie-cutter suburban lifestyles—and imbued the times with an exotic spirit. “It’s appreciation for Hawaiian culture in a very specific way.”
Kem and Rosalyn Loong’s Temple Bar is a Pacific Islanders’ perspective on modern Tiki. “Uncle Kem” remembers
Tiki bars on his native island of Kauai (though they’re not called Tiki bars there), and has tried to bring some of that spirit to the
University Avenue locale.
Palm fronds lean high over the small stage where Kem and Rosalyn serenade guests during “First Sunday Luau” dinners each month;
intricate Tongan and Hawaiian tap
as and kapas (cloths of mulberry or breadfruit tree bark decorated with patterns pounded in and then dyed) hang next to Hawaiian flags. Two lamps of the Hawaiian god Lono—commissioned by Walt Disney—flank the stage.
Kem Loong embodies “true Hawaiiana,” says Cortes-Viharo. “He’s pretty authentic because he’s
a real Hawaiian.”
But whatever the trappings, it’s the people that make a Tiki bar,
insists Kem, tuning a ukulele for
the class he teaches at the bar every Tuesday night. “Not only the owners but the patrons,” he says. “There are people who can’t seem to get away from [Tiki], who are always going to find a nice Mai Tai or
tropical drink.” The Loongs serve up traditional Hawaiian fare, like huli-huli chicken, lomi-lomi salmon, kalua pork, and chicken long rice.
Friendliness and a relaxed environment are essential to an authentic Tiki and Hawaiian establishment. “What makes a good Tiki bar is the aloha spirit,” says Rosalyn Loong. She says she is happy that her place has a family vibe; people of all ages attend the music classes and special Hawaiian concerts, featuring slack-key guitar and other unique island flavorings. “A Tiki bar needs good music,” says Cortes-Viharo. “There’s nothing worse than a Tiki bar playing Whitney Houston songs.”
On a clear day, you probably could have seen Stevenson’s vessel make its way toward
the Farallons and points west from the current Emeryville location
of Trader Vic’s. Now the flagship
restaurant of an international chain, Vic’s is still a mecca for Tiki enthusiasts, and claims the highest TiPSY (Tikis Per Square Yard) ratio in James Teitelbaum’s Tiki Road Trip, an exhaustive survey of Tiki establishments worldwide.
Trader Vic’s is a tropical feast for the eyes, full of authentic Polynesian bric-a-brac like outrigger canoes hanging above the dining room and marine-life artifacts like stuffed turtles, walrus tusks, and carved crocodiles (I’m not sure when the walrus or crocodiles passed through the Society Islands, but maybe these were adventurous ones). It’s a complete eye-candy experience.
And then there’s the original Mai Tai. Ask for one San Francisco–
or old-style and you’ll get one as the Trader himself would have prepared it, with all fresh ingredients and
no mixes. On our particular visit
to the establishment, we also got some snarky attitude from the barman on duty, but even his latent hostility couldn’t sour the magical blend of rum, lime, and orange curaçao.
About two miles away, the site
of the original Trader Vic’s is now
an empty lot. The only thing left standing is a lone palm tree—a fitting tribute to its Tiki past. One can almost picture a new Tiki bar on the lot: a kitschy cultural phoenix risen from the ashes of luaus past.
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Brian Kluepfel is a freelance journalist whose byline has appeared in the Bronx, Bolivia, and Berkeley.
