Rum Row Basement Tiki Bar - Shakopee, MN

Name: Rum Row Basement Tiki Bar

Type: restaurant

Street: 1583 1st Avenue East

City: Shakopee

State: MN

Zip: 55379

country: USA

Phone: (none listed)

Status: operational

Current hours: Wed - Sun open at 4 PM

https://rumrowtiki.com/

Description:

Recently made another trip to Minneapolis. With Psycho Suzi's now closed, I browsed around online on a whim to see if there were any other interesting places to try and was pleasantly surprised to find this.

Though quite a bit out of the way and light on decor, it's definitely worth a visit. We were told they've been open a bit over a year. They are located inside the Shakopee House restaurant, by the Minnesota River - they have some decks for outdoor seating, but we were indoors.

Entry to the "tiki bar" looks promising as you descend the stairs, but once inside it's pretty sparse. Some bac bac on the walls and a few inexpensive mass-produced masks, but not much more. They do have a large case of mugs available for purchase - mostly Geeki Tikis during our visit. No mug of their own yet, but the main bartender said they were working on it. We arrived right when they opened at 4 pm on Wednesday and were the only customers for most of our visit. A few other groups came in and out, but it was very quiet - I'm guessing they're busier on Weekends and/or when the weather is nicer?

Food is from the same kitchen as upstairs and was OK. We split chicken skewers with rice - did the trick, but nothing to rave about.

What they DO have is rum. Lots and lots of really, really good rum. We each tried a cocktail first (I had the Years of Darkness which was pretty good; Ted had the Victory, also nice.) But then moved on to just exploring the wall of rum. We're fairly experienced with rum, but they had plenty of new things for us to try in addition to some favorites. Most impressive - they had an entire single barrel of an exclusive version of Privateer made for them - the entire top shelf of their extensive rum wall was filled with those bottles. They offer both 1 oz and 2 oz pours, so we ended up doing a bunch of 1 oz samples.

The "main" bartender (whose name I'll update when I remember!) seemed pretty knowledgeable. The second guy normally works upstairs and was almost entirely unfamiliar with rum. But we had fun suggesting things for him to try (turns out he digs Jamaican funk & Agricole, so he's on the right track.)

They're hoping to pick up some of the Psycho Suzi's crowd now that they've closed, though I think that's a bit of a hard sell due to the distance and lack of kitsch / "fun factor" those customers are used to. But if you're a rum fan, it's worth the detour.

(Yes - they let you sit right next to the rum bottles over there!)

[ Edited by bamalamalu on 2023-09-17 15:52:49 ]

Since a spammer bumped this thread - Rum Row moved not too long after my visit. Menu looks the same, according to the website.

Their new location (still a ways outside the city) is:

590 West 79th Street Chanhassen MN 55317

https://rumrowtiki.com/