Before x-mas, my wife, myself and my best friend tried to make it down to the Omni-hut in Nashville. When we got to Nash-vegas we decided we'd better call ahead. Yeah... they were closed for the holidays. I left a brief message that said "Ohhhhh... I wish you would update your webpage about days you'll be closed, cause if not, idiots like me will drive two hours out of the way for nothing."
Well, my wife and I finally made our way back this last weekend. We even called ahead to find out what time they finished seating people for dinner. (9:30).
When we got there we were seated by owner Miss Polly. She was real nice and noticed my tiki-shirt and asked why we weren't watching the football game (the Titans were playing) and I said we were from Kentucky and didn't really care for the Titans. (I'm a Jets fan---I know, don't ask).
Miss Polly came back after a few minutes and asked if we'd heard about her from the Tiki Road Trip, and I said yes, as well as a webpage. Anyway... she looked at us and said "did you try to come down during christmas?" I said yes, I'm the idiot that didn't call ahead.
She laughed and replied that she was the idiot for not knowing how to update a webpage... and that she'd told herself that if we ever came in and she knew who we were, she'd pick up the tab! Not only that, but they even bumped our order's up to the feast!
The service was AMAZING. It was kind of a slow night, so we had the place relatively to our self... they kept coming by to check on us and Miss Polly even stopped to chat from time to time. We got plenty of pics and then they brought out the volcano dessert (ice cream and chocolette sauce with a flaming sugar cube)! Wow... plus, we asked for an extra place mat and Miss Polly gave us two, a menu, and a tiki toothpick holder or something she had in a cabinet!

Unbelievably nice people. Go there... buy lots of food and support this wonderful establishment!

https://tikicentral.com/viewforum.php?forum=2&394

Okay... was that a subtle way of telling me it should go in the locating tiki forum? 'Cause I was really just trying to tell everyone a rather cool story, and that seemed to me to make more sense in the general forum.

It IS a cool story, will you post some pix? Is the place still unrenovated?

Thanks for the cool story, Rorysm. It was good to put it here, where more people will see it. But if you have enough material for a review, putting something in Locating Tiki would also be swell!

On 2004-01-15 14:03, Rorysm wrote:
Okay... was that a subtle way of telling me it should go in the locating tiki forum?

No worries Rorysm,
Looking forward to seeing the pics in your Locating Tiki post.
Unga

I'd love to see more of your photos posted too as I didn't shoot nearly enough when I was there. Heres the only one I have scanned at the moment; its from the right-hand room in the back right corner...looks like he is missing something. I forgot to check into the teriyaki sauce bottles when I was there. Does anyone know if they have a cool label?

I stopped by the Omni Hut last summer.
It was very pleasant experience. The owner Polly is a peach of a woman.

I liked the idea of bringing in your own booze...
It gave me a purpose for using my portable bar...
:drink:

On 2004-01-15 14:19, bigbrotiki wrote:
Is the place still unrenovated?

Are you referring to remodeling after the fire they had?

I was there in 2001 and again just 3 months ago.

They completely rebuilt the place after their fire (I think it was in 1998 or so?), but kept the full on vintage Tiki vibe. Most of the vintage Tiki decor survived the fire and still exists there, but the place feels a lot cleaner than a 40 year old untouched place might. Maybe this is a good thing, a hybrid we don't see too often: an authentic vintage place but one where your feet don't stick to the floor...

Well worth a visit.

On 2004-01-15 18:28, MTKahuna wrote:
I stopped by the Omni Hut last summer.
It was very pleasant experience. The owner Polly is a peach of a woman.

I liked the idea of bringing in your own booze...
It gave me a purpose for using my portable bar...
:drink:

The next fad?

On 2004-01-15 18:28, MTKahuna wrote:
I stopped by the Omni Hut last summer.
It was very pleasant experience. The owner Polly is a peach of a woman.

MTKahuna gave me an Omni Hut menu (autographed by Polly herself) for my birthday!

MTK - you da man!! (And where have you been lately?)

If you've been there, you know- there's a certain "speakeasy" thrill in brandishing your flask and mixing a few hair-curlers with dinner. Next time I'm bringing my orgeat (and getting a hotel room).

[ Edited by: Kava King on 2004-01-16 08:23 ]

The terryaki sauce does have a special lable, it has the Omni hut symbol (like the sign outside) and a palm tree. It's green print on white, but pretty dang cool.

I took lots of pics, but it will be a month before they get developed and scanned and such. That corner tiki man is still there. There were a couple of the big FAN-backed seats (you know what I'm talking about, but I don't know the name) at the corner tables. The blacklight painted flowers were still there, and the aquarium was nice too.

Hey, while you're in Nashville there's another fairly cool place to eat (I'm sure there's bunches) but it's called Safari's. The food was pretty good (but non-tiki), the place was kind of starting to get old, but clean. There was a HUGE overhead aquarium with some REALLY HUGE fish in it. The bar was very non-tiki, but pretty well stocked. The staff wore Hawaiian shirts, but most of the decore was better described as exotic. Kind of felt like it could be a cool tiki resteraunte if the right guy (or girl) bought it. In fact, there was like a mini-bar area under the aquarium that was being used for a computer to put orders in and print out bills and such... it would be a killer tiki bar. Definate potential. I can't really explain the location... it wasn't too far from a mall, but I'm not sure which mall. When I have more info I'll post it to the locating Tiki spot (I just wanted to mention here because of the number of people who have been to the Omni-hut and will read this). We stumbled apon this place when the first trip to the O-H was a bust... perhaps discovering this place was meant to be. I'll try to get some pics from the friend that went with us.

You should have told her...

"Im from Kentucky, we all like the Colts."

You know, the team that WINS!

Chase_317
Indiana Tiki Devotee

[ Edited by: chase_317 on 2004-01-16 09:55 ]

No... actually the general perception in Ky is that the Titans are the team to root for. Remember, we hate Indiana more than we hate anything. My best friend has a really neat system of picking teams to root for.

Here it is...
Never root for a team from Indiana.
Never root for a team from California (unless they are playing a team from Indiana).
Never root for a team from New York (Unless they are playing a team from Cal. or In.).