The PONO HUKILAU: A tiny slice o’ tiki paradise on the Central Oregon Coast

A while back, some friends living in Florence, Oregon told me that their town was getting a tiki bar. What!?! I looked it up online and what little I could see did not impress me. I scoffed at it. When I visited last June, I drove by it several times but didn’t bother to go in. When I visited again this past October, I decided to see just how lame it was…and was pleasantly delighted with the entire experience.

Sure the place is small (and the parking lot is even smaller), but it got a thumbs up from me.

The decor inside is not going to win any Tiki Torch Awards (if there were such a thing), but for a small town they did very well. I’m not sure if the residents of Florence (population 8,947) even know what a tiki bar is. They are lucky to have one. My city (of more than 500,000 people) has none.

Although the decor was minimal, I really liked the surfboard-shaped three-dimensional tiki idol made from foam core along one wall.

The ceiling was a mix of surfboards and Hawaiian shirts. It may not have been the best ceiling treatment ever, but it was a novel attempt and better than a plain one.

Although the menu makes it clear that the place is primarily a restaurant, the drink list on the back lists 19 tiki cocktails. There were no tiki mugs, but the list of classic cocktails looked promising.

I decided to start off with a Parrot Punch. It was sweet (but not overly sweet) and tasty — and amazingly colorful. I liked it and so did the friend I was with. In fact, when we later had another round, he ordered one of these as well instead of another beer.

While we waited for dinner to arrive, I snuck out to quickly get some photos outside. The patio area looked nice and there was some fun tiki-inspired sculpture near it.

According to the story on the menu, the owner’s father had a restaurant in Hawaii where the owner grew up. After going to culinary school for a while, he moved back to Hawaii and worked as a chef. Later he moved to Oregon and started his own food truck. The Hukilau was born. Sometime later, the food truck was successful enough for the business to move to a more permanent address. The Hukilau’s food truck now sits in front of the restaurant and is for sale.

For my second drink during dinner, I opted for the namesake Hukilau Hawaiian Punch. Like the earlier drink, this one hit the spot.

While the Pono Hukilau is small and small town, I had a delightful experience. The service was on the slow side (my friends who lived there later complained of this as well), but the food (especially the sushi) and drinks were good. Although the place was not all that crowded when we arrived (I initially took this as a bad sign), it was jam-packed by the time we left. And this was on a Thursday night in a town of less than 10,000 people. Florence, Oregon can thank the tiki gods for this little slice of tiki paradise.

The Pono Hukilau
185 Highway 101
Florence, Oregon 97439
(541) 991-1071
Website: https://www.hukilauflorence.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehukilauflorence/