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Aloha

Tiki came over on the waves of the pacific and landed in Europe in the sixties, a full decade after it’s popularity boomed in the United States. Restaurants and bars popped up with a Polynesian theme, with great attention to detail going into the menu, the exotic drinks, and even in the naming of the establishment. In 1963, Trader Vic's, a California restaurant chain, opened its first tiki bar on the European continent, in London’s Hilton Hotel. In 1974, Trader Vic's opened their second restaurant in Munich’s famed Bayerischer Hof Hotel, the same year that Germany hosted the Soccer World Cup. Astonishingly enough, many authentic Polynesian themed restaurants throughout Europe have survived through the decades and remain today a delightful discovery for younger patrons. This is due in part to the Post-Tiki wave that has swept through America over the past twenty years or so and also to Europe. Another great and probably the biggest influence are the publications - The Book of Tiki (2000) Tiki Modern (2007) and Tiki Pop (2014) - written by the German Urban Archeologist Sven Kirsten, who has resided for many years in California. The previous peak was reached in 2014 when Sven Kirsten could present the exhibition TIKI POP as curator at the prestigious Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.

Until recently, many of the European Tiki locations have not been documented. The Tiki Road Trip by James Teitelbaum and the City in Space guides www.cityinspace.com have some locations listed, but not all. We would like to change this, so we need your help in this project, to use this site as a European tiki bar and restaurant guide. For this huge undertaking we will need any information and hints that you can give us.

Mahalo

What we are looking for:

  1. Any information on restaurants and bars that have to do with the South Pacific Islands in any form.
  2. Neo-tikibars and businesses that have a tiki theme can also be included, but our main topic will be tiki bars from the 1950’s-1980’s.
  3. If the location that you know about is already listed on our website, your information is still wanted! Perhaps you have different photographs, stories, or knowledge about current or past changes in the structure or decoration.
  4. This will not only be a guide for current bars, but also a history of past locations. Any information including photography, postcards, and newspaper articles on previous locations, for example the Butlin’s Vacation Camps in England, are greatly appreciated.

What we are NOT looking for:

Anyone can decorate using a plastic lei and cheap bamboo and call it a tiki bar, so please use your discretion upon submitting your location to this website. If they serve caipirinias and call them exotic drinks, chances are they shouldn’t appear in this book.

Submitting your information:

There is now a new upload feature available.
Please review always first the existing locations and if you don't find a tiki place that you know, submit it to us.

1) View the existing gallery
2) Submit a new location

We have three tiki icons below with three names to submit general information to.

E-Mail: haikai@forbidden-paradise.com
E-Mail: lurker@klangundkleid.ch
E-Mail: sventiki@aol.com