The Tiki Bar

by John Urban



It’s about time we recognize an important institution that’s close to the hearts of everyone who spends time by the water.  I am talking, of course, about the Tiki Hut, or the even more specifically, that heartfelt institution, the Tiki Bar.

Anthropologists identify the origins of the Tiki Hut as going way back – yes, before Gilligan’s Island, before McCale’s Navy, even before James Michner’s book Tales of the South Pacific.  Some identify the US Tiki Hut culture as Polynesian kitsch. (That may be true but life experience has repeatedly confirmed that things characterized as being “low-brow” are a heck of a lot more fun than the alternative.)

An authoritative review of the research site Wikipedia pegs the Hollywood, California restaurant Don the Beachcomers as the origins of Tiki culture in the states, followed by another California restaurant, Trader Vic’s. Yet before we digress too far in this intellectual exploration, let’s get back to our underlying interest here – the Tiki Bar.

This past week I did some extensive research at a select poolside Tiki Bar.  This first-hand, primary research was conducted on behalf of you, dear reader.  Rum drinks, cold draft beer, bar food – I investigated it all while sitting on a bar stool poolside beneath a thatched roof.  Here are some observations:

- You can frown at umbrella drinks all you want, but there is no arguing that they’re damn fine when consumed under the mid-day sun.

- Did you ever notice that if you camp out at your local watering hole in the early afternoon you’ll be identified as having a serious social and medical problem, but if saddle up to the Tiki Bar mid-day you’re living really, really well?

- Have you ever stopped to consider that you’d get escorted away if you walked around your local bar wrapped in a towel and swim suit, while the outfit is de rigueur at the Tiki Bar?

Academic researchers might help us understand what’s behind all of this. Shorts, flip-flops, loose-fitting shirts, does this attire signal the brain that we are in a very different mode from that of the normal working day? Does the thatched roof and its open sides tell us that we are in a more temporary enclosure than the home, one that emphasizes being in the moment rather than the permanence of a more solid structure? These are deep questions. Then again, maybe this is just about having a rum drink by the water.

I’ll leave these questions and answers to others, but I do know that the Tiki Bar serves as an important research site for those of us who write fiction (at least that’s what I am telling the IRS if they ask). Anyone want a Piña Colada?

Mahalo

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