Mrs. Mai Tai suggested checking this place out in downtown SLO after our lunch in Morro Bay. This restaurant and bar includes a creekside patio and second bar out back. The menu is obviously tiki inspired, though from a surf and boat drink point of view. There are a few tiki elements here, but for sure this isn’t a dark tiki bar; it’s a fun bar with a tiki theme. Mrs. Mai Tai ate here a couple years ago and said the bar food menu was pretty good.
Some plusses here. The spirit options were quite reasonable, in addition to a variety of beers and wine options as you’d expect. Mrs. Mai Tai thought the Blood Orange Mule was fantastic and while I’m not normally a ginger beer/mule fan myself, I had to admit it was quite tasty.
The weird thing is that although most of the spirit categories had at least a couple quality offerings, the rums were disappointingly aligned to super sweet cocktails. Bacardi, Malibu, Sailor Jerry, and several Captain Morgan flavors. Myers’s was by far the best here.
The “Tiki Tai” has white rum, spiced rum, orange and pineapple juice, a dark rum float, and “drizzled with grenadine.” I give a lot of leeway to bars serving Island Style Mai Tais (including the Harbor Hut in Morro Bay), but the Tiki Tai was very Rose’s Grenadine forward and so very very sweet. Sweeter than is even my preference.
Which isn’t to say that Creeky Tiki was terrible. The patio out back or the parklet out front offered some nice shaded seating on a Saturday afternoon, so if you’re looking for a place to hoist a few with friends in SLO then Creeky Tiki could be great.
