Finally! It’s post(mid?)-pandemic tiki time!

It’s been a long, dry, tiki-free 2020 and early 2021. By late spring, with people getting vaccinated, it seemed as if the pandemic was winding down. And that could only mean that tiki bars would hopefully begin to open back up.

Living in the pit that I live in, which is completely devoid of tiki (The nearest tiki anything is two hours away.), when the world began opening up, I still had to wait for a tiki fix. My chance came when the date of my long-held reservations to see the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit in San Francisco came up. Ha-cha-cha-cha!

San Francisco is one of the tiki-lovers dream cities along the West Coast. The city boasts some top-notch Polynesian pubs as well as the oldest-known and longest-running tiki bar, Trad’r Sam. However, in early June of 2021, not all of the better bars were open. Smuggler’s Cove? Nope! The classic Tonga Room? Uh-uh. The wondrously spectacular Zombie Village? No… There were a few open bars to pick from (Trad’r Sam was open, but I was hoping for something a bit more than what it had to offer.), but to end my tiki fast, we went to Last Rites. (It was the closest one open to where we stopped for dinner after the Van Gogh show. Ha!)

I like Last Rites. It is the bar that’s back story seems to be that of a plane crash in a dense jungle. The survivors have turned the plane’s fuselage into a bar–to keep the natives happy, no doubt. Chairs from aircraft as well as massive skull sculptures add to the ambience. It gives the place a great look and transports the customer on an alcoholic adventure.

It was nice to be back in the land of tiki, but… As much as I like Last Rites, it just isn’t my favorite. My first visit had been a really nice experience. Later visits, while pleasant, just didn’t “do it” for me. Was it my imagination, or had the staff gotten a bit snooty? I am glad they take the tiki bar seriously, but this trip it seemed to be pushing the envelope.

Did you have a reservation? What? This early on a Wednesday night? No, we didn’t… But they somehow found room–and there was a lot of room to be found–for us anyway. Our waitress was all business, raised eyebrows, and unmistakable annoyance. Was she being ageist (My friend Erich was with me. He was 70. I had recently turned 56.) or did she have something against people with handicaps (I had been using a cane for my disability for about a year.)? It was almost as if she was doing us a favor by waiting on us. There was no friendly demeanor or jovial banter one might expect from a member of the serving staff of a tiki bar.

We pretended we didn’t notice we were being treated like second-class citizens and ordered our drinks. That’s something else I had noticed about Last Rites–and many o’ the modern tiki bars; while the drinks on my first visit had been tasty, the ones on successive trips had not been so great. Drinks that use too much spice or are drowning in bitters do not appeal to me. There is a fine line between excess and the perfect cocktail…and too often excess wins. I had learned this lesson a long while back…and it has greatly diminished items I’ll try on drink menus.

Erich is another story. He will spot an ingredient or two in a cocktail that intrigues him, order it, and end up with a drink that is not to his liking.

My drinks were fine. I started off with a Kali Ma’s Doom

And had the bar’s signature cocktail, Last Rites, as a chaser.

We only stayed for two drinks. It was a nice time, I suppose. But for being denied any tiki anything for all of that time, the visit was rather anticlimactic and disappointing. Perhaps they just haven’t fully sprung back from COVID yet? I chalk it up to that. I mean, has ANYTHING sprung back to normal entirely yet? Nope. Oh well…

Still, it was nice to see the place got itself a swell new sign.

As luck would have it, just a short time later, I had a medical appointment at Stanford. Stanford is in Palo Alto. Just up the peninsula a little ways from Palo Alto is San Mateo, from which the San Mateo Bridge is how I cross the bay to and from appointments at Stanford. San Mateo is also the home of a tiki bar I had been wanting to visit, the Downtown Tiki Lounge. Or, at least, it was. The Downtown Tiki Lounge didn’t survive the pandemic and was completely gutted and shuttered.

Following my brief appointment at Stanford, Erich (who’d gone with me. I was staying at his house in San Leandro) and I went exploring up the coast, eventually winding our way back to San Francisco. Where were we going? I really wanted to take Erich to Zombie Village, which was one of the last tiki bars in the city to reopen. It is by far the most beautiful tiki bar in San Francisco, I think. Erich had never been before.

Although it may be hard to see from my photos, the bar is just stunning. You can stand at the bar on one side or sit on the other on these rough-hewn wooden stools. Behind the bar is a series of small tiki huts. Although we didn’t have a reservation, we were seated in one of those.

The place is just so well done. There is a second bar (covered in skulls) on an upper floor,but we didn’t get to go up. There is also a grotto-like area in the back, below that second-level bar.

Erich started off the evening with a Desert Oasis. I had a traditional Painkiller. Mine was okay, but Erich wasn’t wild about his. (I tasted it and neither was I.) As a chaser, I had a Nui Nui and he had a Doc’s Grog. Eh… they were okay. I was a little sad to see that the drink menu was much more limited than it was pre-pandemic. The waitress even noted the abbreviated selection when I asked about a certain drink I had had there on my incredible first visit.

Erich seemed suitably impressed with the place, but much of the magic seemed missing this visit. I guess COVID had taken a toll, albeit a minor one, on Zombie Village. While far from a horrible experience, I just hope Zombie Village can return to its usual awesomeness once this pandemic is over and done with.

After two lackluster tiki excursions after months of isolation (They weren’t bad, just a bit disappointing and missing some spark.), my third post(mid?)-pandemic tiki trip was a treat — The Sinking Ship in Bakersfield. That adventure was chronicled HERE–and I am expecting to return very soon.

In addition to a possible return to The Sinking Ship in the near future, things are looking up. Los Angeles is calling and, as a late birthday trip for my friend Erich, we may be heading down there—and there will definitely be some tiki action if we do go-go. Also, I happened to catch word that Bamboo Ben has been doing a build out in Walnut Creek as Tiki Tom’s, a simple bar that didn’t get much attention, is going full-on tiki-rama!

I contacted the owner and the place is getting ready to debut at the end of August 2021. I’m already planning my trip there. Whoo hoo!

CHEERS!