San Francisco’s Secret Tiki
Eugene Savage mural in Luau Lounge at Pier 39 (D. Hoekstra photo)
SAN FRANCISCO—The Bay Area is a great port for tiki bars.
There will always be a place in my heart for the Tonga Room, a rainy tiki paradise in the basement of the Fairmont Hotel that Anthony Bourdain called “the greatest place in the history of the world;” the newer but tragically hip Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco and Trader Vic’s in Emeryville, Ca.
Last week I visited the Bay Area to see the Oakland Raiders before they relocate to Las Vegas next season. (I doubt they will play the low rider music of War during game breaks). I’ve priced out of my favorite San Francisco neighborhoods so I ended up at a mediocre Holiday Inn with a 24-hour Denny’s at Fisherman’s Wharf. There were lots of Raiders fans at this hotel.
The Wharf is an extreme tourist destination that locals avoid. But I heard about the Luau Lounge in Pier 39, San Francisco’s bells and whistles answer to Navy Pier in Chicago. I’ve been to dozens of tiki bars ranging from the late great Kahiki Supper Club in Columbus, Ohio to the Bali Hai in San Diego. Visiting the Luau Lounge is one of my most weird tiki experiences.
The 150-seat bar is hidden in the back of the Players Sports Bar at the end of the pier.
First, you walk through the memorabilia filled sports bar that looks like any other contemporary sports bar in America. Then you wander through a loud arcade with more than 50 video games and skee ball machines. With very little signage or direction, you finally arrive at the Luau Lounge. What a find.
At night the bar offers a stunning view of the illuminated Bay Bridge and on a clear day, you can see Alcatraz. A future remodeling project will include a complete view from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge. California Sea Lions lounge in the water of San Francisco Bay along at Pier 39. The pier, the bay, the bridges; all the dreams coming and going for years and years.
The Bay Bridge was built in 1933. Here’s a November view from the Luau Lounge.
The Luau Lounge is tastefully designed with bamboo, South Pacific tapa cloth, and Polynesian archives. But it was the Eugene Savage murals that immediately caught my eye.
Savage’s 1930s airbrush Hawaiana illustrations were used for menu cover art in the dining rooms of the now-defunct Matson Line Cruise Ships. Each of the lounge’s 4 feet high and 7 feet long murals are prints on canvas from the actual menus. Savage was from Covington, Ind. (about ten miles east of Danville, Ill.) and two of his most dazzling murals are in the entrance of the Fountain County Courthouse in Covington.
The Matson Navigation Company began traveling to Hawaii in 1862 when Captain William Matson sailed his three-masted schooner from San Francisco to Hilo, Hawaii, bringing along 300 tons of food, plantation, merchandise, and Grateful Dead cassette tapes.
Grand entrance!
I visited the Luau Lounge at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. Matt the Bartender was getting ready for the last call. The lounge closes when the mall shuts down around 9 p.m. He agreed to serve me a glass of Pacifico.
The top-selling tiki drink is the 1944 Mai Tai without pineapple. It is loyal to Trader Vic’s original recipe. The cocktail is $14 and $9 during happy hour, and yes, San Francisco is still big into happy hours.
The Lounge opened in 2012 as an add on to Players. The entire establishment is owned by James Hutton, a Santa Cruz, Ca. native who often travels with his wife and daughter to Hawaii. Hutton’s Peak Attractions also owns the Xtreme Zone at the Adventuredome at the Circus Circus Casino in Las Vegas.
That sounds like way too much fun.
“I was interested in Savage because I had seen those murals in various places,” he said in a Nov. 12 phone interview. “One of the hotels in Maui has these oil versions of them. They’re pretty convincing. And the Matson Line is super fascinating to me. The whole idea of this bygone era where you had to take a ship to get to Hawaii….”
Matt the Bartender had opened around 1 p.m. and said that mine was the second beer he had served all day. The only other people in the Luau Lounge were a group of about ten people who were winding down a post-work office party. A sad-eyed cleaning crew wandered around the arcade.
Where’s the party?
Hutton tried to explain the hidden distant shores of his establishment. “Do you have a bar or restaurant in Chicago that literally doesn’t have a sign?” he asked. “People call us ‘The Secret Tiki.’ It’s a charming thing.
“We built the arcade first in 2001. Then a restaurant failed. So we made part of the current tiki bar an arcade birthday party room for kids. Players opened in 2009 and that’s when we built the tiki bar, which is something I love.”
It is this kind of incongruity that makes travel so rewarding for me. I could have blown off Pier 39 as just another lame tourist attraction, and I almost did.
Instead, I was rewarded with one of the best San Francisco views I have seen and the journey through the jungle of American kitsch made the payoff even greater. There’s always rainbows to be found at the end of the road. Just don’t give up.
Wow, does that place sound great. Those great murals + a drink with Trader Vic’s original recipe…what could be wrong with that picture? Nothing in Mr. Belvedere’s assessment is amiss. Anyway” Happy Trails to You” on your great travels this winter. Signed, Belvedere of Section 242 Row 8 at Wrigley Field.
Thank you Mr.Belvedere! I’ll be keeping an eye on your little brown paper bag this summer. Have a great Thanksgiving!!!