Tiki in Maui? Not so Wowie…

A few years back, my friends Ricki, Erich, Ted, and I headed for Maui. I had been to Oahu and Kauai before, but never Maui. This would be my first shot at the place. Surely an island as popular as Maui would have some fabulous tiki bars, right?

Instead of some resort, we opted to stay in Kihei, the least touristy town on Maui. Kihei, as it turns out, is also the town with the only real tiki bar on the island. (There is another sort of a pool side tiki bar at some fancy schmancy hotel in a resort area of the island–but more on that later.) As it was pushing towards Maui lunch time by the time we had landed, rented our car and were getting close to Kihei, I suggested we hit the tiki bar first, so I could get that out of the way and wouldn’t be bugging everyone about it the whole trip.

Thanks to the magic of Google Maps, we soon found Kihei and the South Shore Tiki Lounge! Only, when we got there, it was CLOSED for remodeling! UGH!

Fortunately, one of the employees was out front. We learned that even though they were closed that day, they were expecting to open up the following day. Hooray!

That next day, my friends wanted to go to the beach near our AirBnB condo and do some swimming. I had just had surgery on my knee, so swimming was out for me. I didn’t feel like doing the beach thing either. For one thing, I didn’t want to be laying there and have the people from Green Peace show up and try to drag me back into the ocean in a mistaken attempt to rescue a beached whale. Also, I’m not 20 any more. I remember the time I went to Kauai 15 years earlier. I had slathered up my front and back with sunscreen, only to have my unprotected sides (who remembers to sunblock their sides?) get incinerated by the sun. OUCH!

I walked my friends to the beach and then decided to go a little further, back to the tiki bar which was supposed to re-open that day. (It was not the brightest idea ever with my knee issues, but I was NOT going to miss that tiki bar, darn it all!). I walked the full length of the beach and took this photo looking back to the condo. It was just a gorgeous place. ​

For better or worse, I gimped along towards the shopping area and tiki bar.  I stopped at this one outdoor (but covered) tourist stand with all sorts of groovy souvenirs, before finally getting back to the shopping area with the tiki bar.

I walked up to the door of the South Shore Tiki Bar, hot and tired and ready for something cool to drink.

“Are you open? Are you open?,” I asked anxiously.

“We will be,” was the reply. “But not until this evening.”

Oh man!

According to the sign on the tiki lounge, it was voted BEST BAR in Maui and BEST PIZZA too. Zowie! That intrigued me. Even though I could not go in, I tried to get a shot of the tiki bar’s “Jungle Lanai” patio area.

I hit another cool souvenir place and saw a feral chicken out and about…then went across the street to the Foodland to buy some postcards.

When dinner time rolled around, my friends and I were wondering what to do. I suggested the tiki bar, as it was voted BEST BAR and BEST PIZZA on Maui (I never did learn who voted them that though…). Ricki wasn’t feeling well or something, so she bowed out. That left Erich, Ted and I. And off we went.

We got to the tiki bar. It had been closed the day we arrived and it had been closed earlier in the afternoon. It had to be open now. Third time is the charm, right? Well, right AND wrong. We got there and the bar was open. However, they would NOT be serving food until the next day. ARGH!

So we went in and found a place on the “Jungle Lanai” patio and each had a drink.  I don’t remember what we had. Mine was pink and served in a martini glass (in the picture above). Erich’s was the one with lemon on the side. Ted’s was the one decked out with pineapple and an umbrella in the fancy tiki glass. I asked if they had tiki mugs for sale and they were going to sell me one of the glasses like Ted had for $10. I thought about it, but no where on it it did it say South Shore Tiki Lounge. And then I saw the beer glasses that had the bar’s name printed on them. Would they sell those? Yes–for $5 each. So Ted and I each got one.

​The drinks were okay…nothing special or memorable, though. The waitress did let me take a picture of her shirt though:

The next day, dinner time rolled around again. Again, I pushed for pizza from the tiki bar. We phoned it in and I went to pick it up.

The pizza wasn’t ready (of course), so I had a cocktail while I waited. The drink was called the Green Spark. Interesting, but it didn’t spark with me. It was fine, though and drinkable.

So I finally got back to the condo with the pizza. Not only did I get to go to the BEST BAR on Maui, but we were going to eat the BEST PIZZA on Maui. Hmm. No where on the sign did it mention it was also home to the BEST (Worst?) INDIGESTION on Maui. I could not sleep that night. My stomach was burning and bothering me all night long. UGH! There were pizza leftovers. No one ate them.

I really hate to be negative. I should cut them some slack. The place had been closed for a while. Perhaps they hadn’t gotten their pizza-making groove on just yet when we ordered? As for the bar… It is small and in a small town. It is essentially the only true tiki bar on the island, but it’s just not that tiki. It’s fine though–and better than the tiki bars where I live (There are NONE). But I was overall disappointed.

Still to come–finally getting away from the condo and doing things! Hooray!

But there was more tiki left to see…

One morning, as we were walking back to the car from breakfast at McDonalds (we’d been curious about the taro root pies and Spam breakfasts they served there), I noticed an outdoor craft fair right on the other side of the parking lot. I think it’s probably there all of the time (it was while we were there). It was nothing but sectioned off booths under tents and crude shelters. Basically, it’s all for the tourists, but there was tiki if you looked for it. One guy carved ginormous tiki idols–bigger than me. Others had clothes, jewelry, fruit, and souvenirs.

Erich bought me some cool tiki masks for my future in-home tiki bar (someday…).

Then we went to a produce vendor who, with a machete, hacked open a fresh coconut, so we could enjoy the coconut water inside. Yum! All it needed was some rum.

Further up the west coast of Maui is Kaanapali. The other (sort of) tiki bar I’d heard about was at the Kaanapali Beach Hotel. The tiki bar was basically just a poolside bar. There was also a matching grill next to it. They were separated by a giant tiki statue.

Most of the customers at the bar were having beer. Hmm.

The Tiki Grill seemed closed. No one was there.

Anyway, we got to the Tiki Bar, sat down and we had to have a drink. We both opted for the Coco Loco (or something like that). The bartender told us she was out of coconuts (??? The menu hadn’t said anything about them being served in coconuts.), would we settle for these? And she pulled out two green tiki mugs! Heck yes those would be fine. Nothing on the drink menu mentioned coming in any sort of glassware. When I asked if we could buy the mugs, she said they came with the drink! AWESOME!!!! The only bad thing about them (aside from the not-so-great cocktail that came in them) was that no where on the mug does it say anything about the Kaanapali Beach Motel, Maui,or anything. Oh well. I’ll know where it came from.

As we were leaving, we noticed a small tiki-themed snack bar next to the hotel. Still not that interesting, but better than nothing.

Don’t get me wrong. Maui was gorgeous and a lot of fun. It was just very tiki-lite. Both the South Shore Tiki Lounge and the Kaanapali Beach Hotel Tiki Bar were serviceable and fine….just not that outstanding or memorable. The best tiki bar in Maui? That is an easy choice.

It is this one:

CHEERS!