which was very active from 1995 to 2003, and sort of half-active from 2003 to 2007.
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The Tiki Bar Review Pages site was replaced by the book Tiki Road Trip in 2003 - the second edition of which (2007) is available NOW.
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See Tiki Road Trip (2007 edition) for the most up-to-date information.
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Trad'r Sam
San Francisco, CA
Hawaii West
San Francisco, CA
Bamboo Hut
San Francisco, CA
Full review and history of Trad'r Sam, Bamboo Hut,
Hawaii West, and Lili Lounge are available in Tiki Road Trip
June, 2000:
scroll down for August 2001 update
I visited both of these establishments in June of 2000. Trad'r Sam is a smallish place, mostly dominated by a large ‘U’ shaped bar. Around the edges of the single room are an array of beat up old bamboo sofas, chairs, and love seats with mid-century floral patterns on the graying cushions. These little seating areas are loosely segregated by bamboo arches, each bearing the name of an exotic South Seas island. This reminded me of the Mai Kai (Ft. Lauderdale), in which each of seven completely separate rooms are named in a similar fashion to the booths at Trad'r Sam. Samís booths are: Tahiti, Hawaii, Samoa, Hilo, Kauai, Guam, and Maui.
There aren't any actual Tikis to speak of. Other typical Tiki Bar decor is sparse, but there are a few accouterments hanging about, just enough to make the place feel marginally Exotic. For example, I noticed exactly one token glass float.
The overall atmosphere of Trad'r Sam is one of chaos. When I visited, the place was mostly full of kids in their early twenties who were too loaded to stumble out of the place. Several couples were making out on the sofas. Beer bottles and other debris littered the floors. The air was heavy with smoke. I felt like I was at a frat party rather than a Tiki Bar. The jukebox in the corner spews forth modern rock and pop hits. I noticed a selection ranging from Brittany Spears to Billy Joel, but there was no Martin Denny in sight. A Louis Armstrong disc almost helped, but it was not quite enough to cut it in my book.
The bartenders were grumpy and not very interested in talking to me, even though I made several efforts to spark conversation. I did manage to find out that Trad'r Sam might have been opened in 1939, and that the photo of a middle aged man behind the bar is not Sam.
The Planter's Punch was flat tasting, warm, and moderately strong. It reminded me of the drinks at Ciral's House of Tiki (Chicago), in that it was served up in a tall thin glass, barely garnished, and seemed to be made of room-temperature Hawaiian Punch poured over bottom shelf rum and some ice. Neither shaken nor stirred.
The Mai Tai was strong but harsh. It was orange in color, and served, again, in a tall glass. I can't state with certainty that I was given the same glass twice, but it is a possibility. It was garnished with an orange slice, a cherry, and an umbrella. It was difficult to drink - each sip reminded me more of battery acid than anything else. Enough. I’m out of here!
I was at Trad'r Sam on a Thursday; perhaps slower weeknights might be a better time to visit.
August 2001 Update:
We revisted Trad'r Sam in August of 2001. Mig and Hanford from Tiki Central suggested a visit after a disapointing trip to the Tonga Room. We followed them to Trad’r Sam, which was packed full of more barely legal little college girls that is safe for me to reminisce about. We eventually got a seat, but for a Monday night it was pretty jammed! Mig bought us some sort of huge ass drink in a giant snifter full of everything the bartender could find behind the bar, including ice cream, and Drano(?), which we all shared.
I was a bit more fond of the place this time around, even though the music was worse and the crowd were more dense (in several ways) than on my previous visit. That's the danger of familiarity, I suppose. Go have a look for yourself... as the four people who wrote in about Trad'r Sam (below) did!
Martin Cate adds: I do have to say I think you were a bit harsh on my neighborhood hotspot, Trad'r Sam's. No argument that it's hell when full of the USF frat crowd on a friday night. I hit it on a Saturday at about 4:00PM, grab a corner booth with a few friends, and settle in for the night. The bowl drinks are great stuff, and there many other hidden gems on the menu. I'm usually unconscious by 9:00PM, but happy.
Dave Sturm adds: Hell yeah..you got it right...I first visited Trad'r Sam's in Jan.1990...I was amazed that a neighborhood tiki bar still existed...I was visiting from Boston (where they all had been evacuated to the 'burbs, if at all) and I thought that SF was really cool so I moved here...I've been dragging people to Trad'r Sam's ever since...it's always had lousy drinks, sadly... EXCEPT for that first visit, when there was at least some Frank Sinatra on the 45 rpm jukebox...that small bit of charm has been erased...(the scourge of CDs) lately Trad'r Sam's has been more and more crowded. (like every other bar in SF).
I only visit it about every 18 months or so...I am getting too old to give a shit, but the Bamboo Hut on Broadway was nicely outfitted by the southern California design and supply house OCEANIC ARTS...they do good work! The few times I've visited there I thought the drinks were not great, considering the prices charged. I have had very tasty "exotic" cocktails at the Lilo Lounge and Trader Vic's but the Tonga Room is always a disappointment drink-wise...Great atmosphere, generally, but it could be so much "cooler"...the last couple of times I was there they seemed not to be serving drinks in Tiki Mugs at all (they never did during "happy-hour")
David Lawrence writes: No starchy, stand-off'ish joint like the similarly named Trader Vic's, Trad'r Sam is Vic's scruffy, violent, alcoholic second cousin. A large, circular central bar gives way to a ringlet of "drinkin' huts," each named for one of the Pacific islands the U.S. tested atomic weapons on. I first visited Sam's about 3 years ago and found it sparsely populated by a series of whimsical characters who enjoyed the jaunty South Seas aire. A recent visit in December of '99 found Sam's somewhat changed. The decor was still mangy and functional, but the crowd had quadrupled and seemed to be made up college kids and recent grads spending their first real paychecks on booze and fashionable pants. One recommends a visit before it becomes unbearable.
Murph writes: Trad'r Sam's has been in operation since 1937 (according to the owner). Much of the decor is original, including the round bar and the bamboo structures that divide the booths, which are named after various Pacific islands. Your other two reviewers apparently didn't pay much attention during their history classes, as the only island in the Pacific where the U.S. tested atomic weapons is Bikini Island, which is not one of the names used.
Anyway, the bar was basically a neighborhood place that just happened to have a tropical theme and an extensive tropical drink menu. Throughout the late 80's and early 90's (my partying/drinking years), the place always had a nice mix of college kids, local alcoholics, hippie types who had wandered over from Haight Street, avant-garde artsy hipsters, neighborhood toughguy gearheads, and a couple of old-timers who first went there while on leave from fighting the Japanese. On a typical Friday/Saturday night, the place was full of happy drinkers, but not overcrowded - you could usually find an empty booth/island. Then, around 1996, a local newspaper listed Trad'r Sam's as an "in" place to go. Overnight, my favorite bar had become jam-packed with people, mostly yuppie idiots in $1000 black leather jackets drinking Heinekins. Instead of strolling in and ordering a mai tai and taking a seat in Maui, there was now a line stretching down the block and a pushy doorman deciding if you were worthy of entering.
It has since calmed down a bit, but the place is still uncomfortably crowded on weekends. If you are going to go, go on a weeknight. It is worth at least one visit, just because of the history of the place and the drink menu, which consists of about 40 different concoctions. One of my personal favorites is the P-38, which is basically a big bowl filled with a little bit of everything behind the bar (ask them to go light on the Cutty Sark). I don't recommend ordering one just for yourself - it comes with multiple straws for sharing with friends. The drink quality can be a bit hit or miss, depending on which bartender is on duty, but after your 4th Blue Hawaiian, you probably won't be all that concernedJune, 2000
Hawaii West
San Francisco, CAHawaii West is also kind of run down, and is even smaller than Trad'r Sam. Right near China Town, the Police Station, and all of those strip clubs on Broadway, Hawaii West is also walking distance from Bamboo Hut.
The front half of the tiny bar is sparsely decorated with beer ad posters, neon, a TV, a pool table, and some other run of the mill corner bar junk. However, if you move towards the back, you will find the remnants of a fairly nice but very small Tiki Bar. The roof over the bar is thatched, there are a half dozen tikis in the two-to-four-foot size (including one from United Airlines’ old Hawaii promos - you know the one!) and even a stone fountain that takes up most of the wall behind the bar.
When I visited, the ten-seat bar was mostly taken up by a fella who seemed to be a genetic hybrid of James Brown and Joe Pesci. His two friends were like Al Bundy's less intelligent cousins. We opted for a table! The rest of the clientele seemed to be Asians in their twenties.
The bartender mixed up a serviceable Mai Tai, although it did have a somewhat Windex-like aftertaste. He couldn't tell me how long the place had been open, but I got the impression that it had been at least a few decades - the thatch over the bar was really old looking, and those United Airlines Tikis are hard to get these days!
The Jukebox does have a moderate amount of older music - mostly Rat Pack stuff more than any real Hawaiian music or Exotica, however. Contemporary hits round the box out.
It is just as run down as Trad'r Sam, and is smaller, but it has a slightly better Mai Tai, a few more Tikis, and fewer obnoxious kids. Have a peek after dinner in Chinatown on your next San Francisco trip.
Bamboo Hut
San Francisco, CA
August, 2001:
The Bamboo Hut is a newish Tiki Bar that sits comfortably among the strip clubs and general filth that populates the particular section of Broadway Street in San Francisco in which it resides.
An easy walk from Chinatown and the City Lights Bookstore (home of Kerouac and Ginsberg, among others), the Bamboo Hut is also adjacent to the Hi-Ball Lounge, which is owned by the same hipsters who saw fit to grace us with the Bamboo Hut.
I made an effort to visit the Bamboo Hut on a Monday night in June of 2000, to find them closed. I made a further effort in August of 2001, and forgetting that my return trip was also on a Monday, I found the doors locked once again. Nice one, man. Way to plan your trip! A conspiracy? Possibly. They're closed Tuesday and Sunday too - something to keep in mind!
The following Thursday, I made a successful entry into the Bamboo Hut, and had a pretty good time. Unfortunately, I had also been to Minnie's and the Tiki Lounge (both in Modesto) that night, so plan on an updated review when I can devote my full attention to the Bamboo Hut, rather than the half-erased version presented here. That's the problem with bar reviews - you can't really do more than one or two in a night with any accuracy...
The room is long and narrow, with a long bar running the entire length. The side of the building opposite the bar seems to be designed to leave as much open space up through the center as possible, succeeding in the difficult task of giving the cramped space a spacious feeling. Towards the back is a cluster of three booths with big blowfish hanging over them, and to the right of the front door is a big fountain with a huge Tiki Head suspended over it. This monument apparently dates to 1948, lending some vintage authenticity to the Bamboo Hut. There are some smaller tikis, drums, plants and other stuff rounding out this 'Tiki Garden". With the exception of this particular display, there isn't an extreme abount of Tiki going on, a few masks here and there (including on ebig one above that bar), but nothing exceptional. The bar itself is designed in bamboo n' thatch, however, and in spite of the semi-sparse TiPSY Factor™ the place succeeds in feeling exotic.
A collage of bizarre artifacts behind the bar seems to be a must for good Tiki Bars, and Bamboo Hut is well on their way to accruing the requisite clutter. I must confess however, that signed photos of Brittney Spears and some random stripper might best be left at home in the owner's bedroom. That said, a collection of Tiki Mugs is accumulating on the same shelf, so things are indeed underway.
The bartender didn't look too thrilled to see us. This might have been because it was really dead in the bar, and he would have preferred to be alone with Brittney, or perhaps because this was the third Tiki Bar I had visited on this particular night, and the fact was probably fairly clear to him. My best theory, however is that when I mentioned that I was going to be reviewing his drinks on this web site, he panicked and got ornery out of fear, since he clearly has no idea how to concoct a good tropical drink.
Ouch! I don't care what tropical island you're from, that's gotta hurt. Sorry man, but it had to be said.We encountered a group of tourists from Spain who were in a state similar to ours, and failed to communicate with them on any level except for the part where they wanted to buy us another round of drinks. I was a bit frustrated that this never happens at Trader Vic's, where they have an excellent Mai Tai that I would be happy to receive from any Spainiard (or any one at all, for that matter), but instead only seems to happen in places where the Tropical Drinks are - amazingly - not something I want any part of. I considered ordering a beer but decided that I had had enough, and for the first time in recent history, politely declined a free round.
I made for my hotel...
Given my fuzzy perceptions of Bamboo Hut, perhaps I owe them a more fair appraisal. I did enjoy myself there, and for a neo-Tiki Bar, they seem to be doing a bang-up job on all aspects except for the drinks. I will definitely recommend a visit, but I would stick to beer or traditional cocktails. If the drinks were that offensive in the state I was in, then I can only imagine how wretched I might find them if I were to have gone there with a fresh palette and the wherewithal to make a more focused judgment.
(* = TiPSY = Tikis Per Square Yard)
Mike Remmel writes: The Bamboo Hut on Broadway is right between two strip clubs, and they do have a massive tiki head on the left as you walk in. There are three booths with large puffer fish lamps hanging above which looks cool. The bar stools were way too short for the height of the bar, but the worst part was the drinks! I ordered a Mai Tai, which was not great, but ok. My friends ordered a strawberry daiquiri and a pina colada and they were terrible. Neither tasted like fruit at all- their mixes are the worst! And, they charge as much for their drinks as Trader Vic's and the Tonga Room!
Spotted recently by Tiki Bar Review Pages / Tiki News correspondant John Ravitch, this aging relic has not yet been fully explored.
