New Luck Toy is a 21+ Chinese restaurant and bar in West Seattle that isn’t really tiki aside from a couple stools, but does provide excellent cocktails and an immersive space that will appeal to fans of the genre. There’s a main dining room, a back room with the bar, plus a small karaoke lounge / waiting room near the main entrance. There’s also a really nice dragon mural on the back side of the building, too.
Tiki with Ray recommended this venue and once again he chose wisely as the place was busy on a Friday but we were able to find seats at the bar without difficulty. The configuration of seating is chairs on a raised platform, so you sit normally rather than the typical raised barstool arrangement. Our bartender was helpful at walking us through some of the menu items, and made a custom non-alcoholic drink for Ray, with the Chinese menu arrangement showing which ones are frozen and on tap. Several cocktails are served in tiki mugs and prices are very reasonable, around $13 or $14, and there are some beer and wine options including four beers on tap.
I was interested in both the Mai Tai and the frozen Singapore Sling and broke the tie by getting both. The Singapore Sling comes in a fish mug that is nice on the eyes and in the hand, with a very good cherry flavor that I found balanced and tasty. The Mai Tai is on tap and I had low expectations, expecting pineapple juice, but found this be a really good 1944 style Mai Tai. Though served in a large glass, the Mai Tai didn’t taste watered down at all, and there’s plenty of booze in there too.
Hanging out with Tiki with Ray
The vibe inside New Luck Toy was a delight with hanging lanterns and a shelf of tiki style mugs backing the bar. I heard good things about the Chinese-American food and definitely would consider returning in the future.
I wrote fairly glowingly about the refreshed interior at Trad’r Sam after their surprise and ultimately short-lived temporary shuttering in the fall of 2023. The world’s oldest continuously operating tiki bar was quickly back in business including a decor upgrades and graffiti-free restrooms.
After our wonderful dinner at Tommy’s Mexican we walked a couple blocks up Geary to see how the ol’ Trad’r was doing. There weren’t a lot of people in there just past six, and we settled at a table for conversation over drink. Greg and Debbie had been here before dinner so went with Cokes and Julie and I scanned the menu for some cocktails we’d like to try.
I had a great experience with a Singapore Sling on a past visit, and decided to skip the Mai Tai made with apricot brandy, sweet and sour, and pineapple juice (but at least it wasn’t blended like the Zombie and Navy Grog are). The Sling was, well it was fine – but really sweet. Meanwhile Mrs. Mai Tai went with the Toasted Almond cocktail which is a frozen drink and thanks to being frozen tasted pretty great and not so sweet. Maybe a frozen Zombie isn’t a bad choice next time.
I’m sad to report the restroom has regressed. While the walls are white they’re now covered in graffiti that was pretty raunchy, expressing to customers that Trad’r Sam is still quite divey and likely will remain so forever. Nonetheless, I do enjoy my visits here to remind myself of the history that’s been in place for almost 90 years.
We had a very nice visit to Boo Loo Lounge, a small tiki bar located in the sleepy bedroom community of Orinda. Visiting on Friday evening was no problem since the BART station is a four minute walk away and we avoided rush hour traffic.
There have been some management changes at Boo Loo, but I’m pleased to report that the team remains committed to high quality cocktails and great hospitality. The venue’s small size next to the Orinda Theater means that there are ebbs and flows as guests come and go, but the team worked well to take drink orders and deliver them to the tables. We were treated to a great music mix from DJ Shy Hulud that was a blend of exotic, psychedelic, and Latin tunes.
The cocktail menu at Boo Loo hasn’t changed, which means that their Saturn, Ruby Daiquiri, and Lady of Singapore are still great. Bartender Kriss knew me from The Kon-Tiki and suggested a Mai Tai made with a rare Nha Terra Grog rum from Portugal, and this had a really interesting flavor with white wine flavor notes.
Even better was Boo Loo’s standard Mai Tai that’s made with a blend of rums and just a bit of a grassy lean from the Rhum Agricole. It’s a really good Mai Tai, highly recommended, and Boo Loo continues to have a very nice rum selection if you’re looking for something new to try.
As we left Palm Springs, we made sure to revisit the Cabazon Dinosaurs, looking fine for the holidays and we finally went up into the T-Rex. Our next stop was at Tustin’s Stowaway Tiki for lunch. We enjoyed our previous visit almost a year previous and once again really liked the unpretentious vibe and great food and cocktails.
We only stayed for one drink but really enjoyed the Singapore Sling as well as Stowaway’s signature Cococano cocktail and fire show. Both are well-balanced cocktails and I particularly like how the lemon juice in the Cococano turns this into something different than a Pina Colada with a different name. I really enjoyed the spam musubi and chicken skewers.
Stowaway has a great vibe, very relaxing and fun to hang out. There was still Christmas decor which made everything nicely festive.
It is hard for Stowaway to have the highest mind-share when it is in the same county as Trader Sam’s, Strong Water Anaheim, and The Royal Hawaiian, but we think that Stowaway is a cornerstone tiki destination and something to consider on a tiki road trip. I’d be here all the time if I was a local.
Still catching up on the backlog of posts from mid-March but didn’t want to go without mentioning Tiki Palooza that was held a few weeks back in Seattle.
Tiki Palooza Mai Tais with Jason Craig
This event was hosted at Tim’s Tavern and started with a small tiki marketplace under the tavern’s covered patio area and some tiki drinks were served out of the adjacent trailer bar. The Tikipalooza Mai Tai was what it was, though I really enjoyed the Singapore Fling. We got to hang out in the marketplace with Andy Nazzal of Tiki Joe’s Ocean fame and bought the new CD single “Two Voyages.” Great exotica music if you haven’t heard. There was also a vendor selling Tiki Palooza swizzles.
Stephen Curran
The event transitioned indoors where Stephen Curran did a presentation about his travels to Papua New Guinea. This allowed attendees to order food or more drinks from inside the tavern, and Stephen’s presentation was top-notch with some great cultural details. With so much PNG artwork in so many tiki bars, it really was a treat to learn more about the people of the region.
The event then transitioned back to the patio for a paid/wristband entry for some live music from Tropical Itch and the Tikigraphs. The patio was in full swing, despite the cold and rainy weather, thanks to some heaters and the crowd that was filled with aloha. The bands sounded great and were very entertaining.
I lucked into being in town for this event, and it was modest in scale but was a really nice event for the Seattle crowd and a few interlopers like me.
Heads turned when San Francisco’s Trad’r Sam bar closed mysteriously in late summer. The legendary bamboo bar has been in operation in the Richmond district since 1937, the oldest continuously operating tiki bar in the world. The closure was due in part to a complicated and multifaceted ownership dispute among a brother and sister/niece, along with lease issues. The dust settled with John Munguia taking over operational duties for the first time in many years and the venue reopening in early November.
Aside from settling the lease and operational disputes, the downtime resulted in noticeable updates to the seating and decor inside the neighborhood hangout that in true dive bar fashion still only accepts cash. The bamboo booths named for tropical islands were long in disrepair and have been removed, replaced by new tables and chairs. The blenders and barstools are all new with the bar surface and floor refurbished as well. We noticed there was a greater emphasis on some cheap but well-placed tikis, which I think accented the many historic bamboo elements still in place inside. The previously graffiti-filled men’s restroom has been completely repainted, perhaps the first time in history where white walls were welcome in a tiki bar.
In the previous regime the hours were notoriously inconsistent, but after last week’s SF Standard article that said that bar opens early on Mondays I took advantage of a “wellness day” at work and decided to see how things are before noon in the Richmond. We saw Munguia tending bar with a few regulars who were drinking shots and beer and not the Polynesian Drinks referenced on the iconic sign outside. These regulars were already in party mode when we walked in and soon were treated to a whiskey shot bought by a customer for everyone in the bar. Another regular knew the inside of the venue better than Munguia, running behind the bar to find the remotes for the jukebox and TVs.
Which left it up to this writer to keep up the tradition of Polynesian Drinks at the Polynesian Drinks bar, ordering a Mai Tai. Trad’r Sam features a vast cocktail menu, though on a previous visit it wasn’t clear there was a substantial difference between a Mai Tai and Zombie aside from the garnish. But most the cocktails are just $9, indicating this is a place for inexpensive imbibing and not for refined reflection of craft cocktails. Indeed my island Mai Tai was prepared exactly like the one on my last trip in early 2022 and was so similar it evoked the “they’re the same picture” meme from NBC’s The Office.
But I come to praise Trad’r Sam, not to bury it. The Mai Tai wasn’t too bad, and I had even better luck when I ordered a Singapore Sling from bartender JJ who had recently arrived and really began the bar setup. The Sling contained a mix of rum, sloe gin, a couple cherry liqueurs, and a bit of juice and honestly was the best Singapore Sling I’ve had in a while. Meanwhile, a group of young men came in for some socializing and a couple rounds of tequila shots. I wandered over to the jukebox and immediately found some Gerry Rafferty and Gary Wright songs that tickled JJ and the group of young men. I kept looking and eventually found some Ventures and even a few Martin Denny tunes.
Sitting in the world’s oldest tiki bar listening to “Quiet Village” while sipping a tropical cocktail at 2:00 in the afternoon wasn’t a bad way to spend my “wellness day” after all.
Hardcore tikiphiles certainly have better options in The City, home to at least half a dozen top-tier destination tiki bars. But I think Trad’r Sam is worth visiting as well. True, one minute you might be relaxing with a drink and the next an inebriated regular will be hugging you while sliding over a whiskey shot. It’s that kind of place. It isn’t unsafe, though, and I’d have trusted those regulars to have my back in the event of any trouble. We can only hope that continued upgrades to the interior and maybe the cocktail program will follow with a resurgence of business and the ability to focus on hospitality rather than the judiciary.
Next door to Palmetto and from the same team behind The Kon-Tiki and Palmetto is The Kon-Tiki Room. The soft-open was last night and once again those of us in the Bay Area are spoiled by yet another awesome tiki bar.
Though it shares a kitchen with Palmetto and there is a door in between the two establishments, The Kon-Tiki Room is really it’s own standalone destination. The nondescript door awaits your entrance and inside there’s a nautical themed bar with bright colors to pair well with Palmetto’s art-deco vibe. But whereas Palmetto is bright and shiny, The Kon-Tiki Room is dark and mysterious. There are several little nooks and a large bar running through the space.
The nautical design from artist Woody Miller is inspired by ports of yore, with dramatic scenes of barrels, cargo, and some skeletons. Not really “pirate themed” per se but definitely a little bit of that. There’s a medium sized tiki in the back of the bar.
Small bar bites are available but cocktails are the focus here. We tried several and they ranged from good (Singapore Sling) to great (frozen Disco Banana, Cou-Cou Comber). The Mai Tai features Agricole rhum and is excellent. Not grassy at all, but the savory elements shine in this cocktail.
