Kona Tiki Restaurant, Severna Park, MD (restaurant)

Name:Kona Tiki Restaurant
Type:restaurant
Street:Ritchie Highway at McKinsey Road
City:Severna Park
State:MD
Zip:21146
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
The Kona Tiki Restaurant a.k.a. the Kona-Tiki Restaurant operated in the Severna Park Mall in Severna Park, Maryland from as early as 1976 until as late as 1992, when the Severna Park Mall filed chapter 11 and the the owners proceeded to demolish the majority of the 35-store enclosed mall to build a "super strip center." The site is presently the Severna Park Marketplace (575 Ritchie Highway, Severna Park, MD 21146).

The Kona Tiki was a modest asian restaurant in a modest one-story shopping mall. The entrance from the interior of the mall to the restaurant was flanked by tikis and had smoked glass doors. The interior was tiki mostly by decor such as masks, peacock chairs, and plastic palm trees, plus some bamboo.

The owners were Chack Foo Lee and Chui Kuen Lee, who are Vietnamese by account of the Baltimore Sun (December 22, 1976). The cuisine style was Szechuan. Several other accounts both in the Baltimore Sun and the Anne Arundel County Sun (October 5, 1987) noted citations for underage drinking and the aforementioned closing of the Severna Park Mall.

There appear to be no extant menus, swizzles, matchbooks, or marked mugs to date.

Wonder if it had any relation with this:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=23617&forum=2

i saw that - i doubt it, but i guess anything is possible :D

i'm hoping by posting this in tiki central, anyone who dined here during its 16(?) year history might chime in and let us know about the experience!

[ Edited by: johnny dollar 2013-05-02 09:51 ]

Talked to a younger friend who lives in the Severna Park area. He attended several wedding gatherings at the Kona Tiki in the 70's. He was too young to drink at that time, but definitely remembers they had ceramic Tiki mugs! Thortiki

On 2013-05-04 04:40, Thortiki wrote:
Talked to a younger friend who lives in the Severna Park area. He attended several wedding gatherings at the Kona Tiki in the 70's. He was too young to drink at that time, but definitely remembers they had ceramic Tiki mugs! Thortiki

neat! did he recall anything marked with the name Kona Tiki? I wonder if you could show him this stuff

On 2007-04-04 14:59, uncle trav wrote:
I have had these items for a while now. I searched the TC threads and found nothing. The web and nothing. Tiki Roadtrip, nothing. Even Ebay and nothing. Can anyone help out with any info? Thanks.

and ask if it looks familiar - that would establish a connection between this one and the NY one as bigbrotiki suggests... :D

My friend looked at the Kona Tiki pics:

1. "NO", not the same place. Severna Park had green swizzle sticks with scripted letters "Kona Tiki". They had a hula girl on the head of the stick.

2. He said they also served pitchers of wine spritzers on tables @ functions. The place was notorious for not carding underage drinkers, if you ordered a Tiki drink you got it.

3. Kona Tiki closed a year before the mall closed under new ownership. Numerous Liquor License violations was the main reason.

Thortiki

thanks! now we all gotta keep our eyes out for those green kona tiki swizzles :D