Tiki in St. Pete, FL

I will be in St. Petersburg on business for a few days Wed - Sat. What's the scoop on tiki joints in that locale?

Not sure if it is still around, but there is supposed to be a really cool store called Hula Hula somewhere over by the beach and they specialize in vintage Hawaiiana...I'd look it up and call beforehand...anyone from Tampa/St. Pete know anything about it?

Hula Hula is at St Pete Beach and bills itself as "A Retro-Tropical Department Store". Web site is here: http://www.hulahula.biz/pages/5/index.htm. We visited once a couple of summers ago and found it to be a really nice shop with good quality merchandise.

Hula Hula has hired Haole Kats!!! to play a couple of times for some vintage retro shows. It was a lot of fun.

She's got some pretty cool stuff, a lot of it Hawaiiana, although, she has a lot of cool vintage Florida and Floribbean stuff, too.

Too bad you don't have time (or do you?) to come over to Daytona that weekend for the event over at the Hawaiian Inn.

As far a good tiki joints in the St. Pete area, I can't really think of any. There are a gazillion tiki bars, buy you know what those are about. There IS the Tiki Gardens, which I still haven't been too, but I believe Pablus has. Supposed to be pretty cool, and it's on Gulf Blvd near the beaches.

On the Gardens note, you might also try the Sunken Gardens, which sound like pure cheese, but is actually incredibly cool. I played a solo Hawaiian gig there for a Hawaiian dance school's recital, and it was great. The plants are of prehistoric size. Here's another site with some history on that, too.

Kanekila

It's a parking lot. With a sign that mentions it used to be there.
Don't go there.

Not much in St. Pete.
Pretty cool town but... for tiki - not much.

yup Tiki Gardens has been a boring old parking lot in Indian Rocks Beach for some time now.. not really worth the drive.

There are/were some neat tiki-ish googie hotels along the main drag in St. Pete- last time I was there I saw a place called "The Tahitian" or something like that- probably a condo now the way things have been going.

There's plenty of hidden tikis around in yards etc, but no "tiki establishments" that I know of- you could make the drive to Disney (about 1.5-2 hrs) and hit the Polynesian Resort for dinner/drinks.. thats way tiki'ed.

Sunken Gardens is a cool jungle to check out.. so is Marie Selby Gardens in Sarasota.

For fun you could take the Ft. Desoto ferry over to Egmont Key and hang around a deserted island with white-powder beaches. Or you can drive over the skyway bridge to Anna Maria island, then take the scenic drive south along the coastline through Anna Maria to the Mote Aquarium- you can hop a boat with the Sarasota Bay explorers and do a little trip thru the Sarasota Bay- see some dolphins, drag a net behind the boat and see what cool stuff you catch- its good fun.

Egmont Key

Selby Gardens

[ Edited by: fatuhiva 2006-01-22 21:13 ]