which was very active from 1995 to 2003, and sort of half-active from 2003 to 2007.
Now it is gone.
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.
This is an archive - these pages are no longer updated!
Some information will be out of date. Some of this writing goes back to 1995.
See Tiki Road Trip (2007 edition) for the most up-to-date information.
back to main page
The Tiki Bar, Island Manor Hotel
Solomons Island, MDFull review and history of The Tiki Bar
is available in Tiki Road TripSummer, 1998
The Tiki Bar here is smallish, with only about 20 seats, and 5 or 6 tables off the side. The pic to the right pretty much shows the whole place! We got there early in the day, about 2:00 in the afternoon. Most of our Tiki Bar adventures have occurred at night, and considering that most of the Tiki Bars we know of are trying to recreate a tropical environment, have you ever noticed how dark most of them are? Have you ever noticed how few of them even have windows at all? Well, that's because they're trying to shut out the noise, and crime, and dirt of the urban environments outside. What really makes this place appealing is that there is no city outside, just the water. Like a genuine lanai on Tahiti, the bar is open to the air on three sides, so a fresh breeze and warm sunshine are allowed to enhance the authentic atmosphere. The wide open front of The Tiki Bar allows you a pleasing view of boats on the bay as you sip your Orange Blossom (not bad; tastes like alcoholic Tang). It was extremely relaxing to recline in the breezy sunshine of a comfortably warm August day with a cool drink, nowhere to be, and a few Tiki Gods observing the festivities.
As I said, the place is not the sort of place that would normally rank highly on these pages. Bordeing on what we would call a 'Florida-style' Tiki Bar, it is very small, there are only a half dozen Tikis in evidence, and the drinks are not made fresh. Rather, they are poured out of big plastic jugs into plastic cups. No Orchids of Hawaii mugs here, kids. They only have about six different recipes, and the rum used in them is very cheap. Although the Mai Tai wasn't bad, avoid the Blue Hawaiian at all costs - it looks and tastes like Windex. In fact, the bartender tried to talk me out of ordering it! It was however, one of the strongest drinks I've been served in recent memory. Most of the patrons here are locals who are happy to drink Bud and Miller beer, so I suspect that improving the libations isn't really a priority for the owners. Speaking of the bartender, Jennifer was extremely friendly and gave us great service. She was also happy to recommend a nearby place to eat, and provided both casual and more elegant dining options, both in walking distance.
Aside from the name, a few token Tikis, and some obligatory pre-mixed sub-tropical drinks, you'd be hard pressed to call this place a true Tiki Bar at all. And yet, it was a beautiful day, I was with a gorgeous girl, the staff were nice, the locals were drunk (and impressed that I was "writing a book about their place"*), a breeze was blowing over the boat-filled bay, and I had a strong (if rank) drink in my hand and nowhere to be. What more do you really need? All the bare-bones criteria were filled, even if some of the oh-so-enchanting details were missing. Okay, ALL of the oh-so-enchanting details were missing, like blowfish and nets and Tiki Mugs and stuff. But that's okay. I had fun.
Directions:
Take maryland Route 2-4 south, all the way to the bottom of the state. Watch for signs to Solomons Island. When you finally get to a bridge that goes over the Patuxent River to St. Mary's County, signs will point you away from the bridge. Follow them. Do not cross the bridge. Rt 2 exits to the right before the bridge to go to Solomons. After a few curves, you can't miss the Tiki Bar on your right.
Island Manor Motel, 77 Charles Street, Solomons Island, MD
410-326-4075
Fred Morris writes: The Tiki Bar in Solomons Island, MD is so popular around Washington DC, the annual grand-opening has become legendary. Imagine over 4,000 people in that small bar with only 20 stools! Read the attached article from the Washington Post last year. This was FRONT PAGE news!!
OPENING DAY FOR THE MY-TAI CROWD; TINY SOLOMONS ISLAND INVADED FOR START OF THE SEASONLYNDSEY LAYTON
WASHINGTON POST STAFF WRITER
Saturday, April 18, 1998; Page A01
The first boat, the 25-foot Leap Frog, arrived eight days ago to claim the best spot at the short wooden pier. By Wednesday, more than a dozen speedboats had crowded in, bobbing patiently in the snug harbor. The Holiday Inn booked the last room two weeks ago. And by yesterday afternoon, you couldn't find a parking space within miles of the Tiki Bar.
In what has become an April ritual, thousands of people from around the region -- and the country -- made a pilgrimage yesterday to Solomons Island, a tiny village of 40 families at the southernmost tip of Calvert County, to celebrate the seasonal reopening of the Tiki Bar. They came by boat, car, plane and by foot -- 4,000 men and women drawn to an open-air brown wooden shack that seats 94.
Sheriff Vonzell Ward shudders when asked about the Tiki. "Madness," he calls it. "It defies explanation. It's the closest Calvert County gets to Mardi Gras."
"No one thought it would become such a tradition, but it really has," said Joe Moraski, 53, an electronics technician and sculptor who lives in Mechanicsville, as he stood near the outdoor bar decorated with artificial palm branches and oil renderings of South Pacific sunsets on plyboard.
"I see people here that I know from everything I do in Southern Maryland," Moraski said. "I run into people I work with, the gal who checks my groceries, the guy who changes my tires, my stockbroker. People I know anywhere in a 50-mile radius, they'll be here. . . . And it's completely spontaneous, you see. People just started coming, and it became an event."
Last night, nothing could distract the faithful from their ultimate goal: a $5.50 My-Tai the color of red grapefruit and a salute to summer and all it represents to a community that hugs the water. (The bar won't divulge the ingredients for its distinctively spelled drink, but it clearly involves rum.)
"Regardless of whether it's 45 degrees or 85 degrees, the opening of the Tiki Bar is the start of summer," said David Lundwall, 43, a field engineer at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, just eight miles across the river.
Not everyone cheers the opening of the Tiki Bar. "We don't talk about that," said Herman E. Schieke Jr., the county's tourism specialist. He and other officials prefer to discuss Spring Launch, an arts and horticulture festival started four years ago as a counterbalance to the Tiki Bar.
"We've done everything possible to overshadow the Tiki Bar opening," said Helen Bauer, who runs a historic bed-and-breakfast two doors down from the bar. "It's not the image that we want. We don't want to be known as the place to have a good time."
Jerry Clark, president of the Solomons Business Association, said Spring Launch is an attempt to "turn a negative into a positive." The festival, which includes historic house tours and gardening exhibits, is held the same weekend as the Tiki Bar opening.
But for those drawn to the salty air and the sound of lapping water, the bar is a sanctuary.
"The Tiki Bar has always been my escape from concreteville," said Mike Barancewicz, 35, an energy consultant who drove three hours from his home in Suffolk, Va. "We all know the pressures of the Washington, D.C., area and this is a place to get away from that."
John and Cathy Taylor opened the Tiki Bar in 1980 as an April-to-October spot. They tended the bar themselves and were lucky to get 30 customers the first year. Slowly, people started to celebrate the bar's reopening -- always on the third Friday in April. But only since 1990 has the event become a happening, drawing people from across the country.
In recent years, the boaters have been arriving days or even a week in advance to stake out the best moorings closest to the bar. On Thursday night, Dave Fiore, 32, and several other boat owners threw a "Pre-Tiki BBQ" of steaks cooked on portable grills and then came back early yesterday to get the first drinks at 1 p.m. They took the day off from work.
Many boaters didn't bother fighting the crowds at the bar -- they threw their own parties. Bob Kuzmick, a 54-year-old program manager at Pax River, loaded his blue-topped Hatteras sportsfisher with enough to feed a dozen friends: a 22-pound pork loin, 80 rolls, 10 pounds of potato salad, 10 pounds of coleslaw. And he remembered breakfast -- French toast and sausage -- for anyone still on board when the sun rose this morning.
"Life is short -- that's why you should do things like go to the Tiki Bar and enjoy yourself while you can," said Kuzmick, who began planning his opening-day festivities in February.
The people who clogged the only road onto the island yesterday, clustering in the street around the bar, its pier and in its two-acre parking lot, were a varied group. They included college students, couples, military personnel from the naval air station, out-of-town workers temporarily employed at the nearby Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant and the boaters -- those who moor their speedboats, fishing boats, cabin cruisers and even yachts around the island. They decorated the pier with pink flamingos and their motorcycles with balloons.
"It's a strange group of people," said Jim Gscheidle, who has been watching the phenomenon from his Lazy Moon Bookshop on the main road.
For many locals, it's the social gathering of the year.
The Taylors place one ad in a local paper. Word of mouth does the rest. The Tiki Bar's popularity is fed by overall growth in Southern Maryland and at the Patuxent Naval Air Station in particular. Many of the military workers spread the word about the bar across the country. Lundwall was on an aircraft carrier in Bremerton, Wash., when his Tiki Bar sweat shirt caught the eye of a pilot. "He said, 'Oh, the Tiki Bar! What memories!' This is a guy in the Pacific Northwest! . . . It's a culture, it's a culture."
For young Pax River workers, the opening of the Tiki Bar is the one bright spot in an otherwise subdued nightlife. "It's the only time people from Annapolis, from D.C. come down here," said Rob Trauchant, 27, an avionics technician. "One night, that's it."
Sandy and Dana Richardson drove nine hours in their Ford Escort to reach the Tiki Bar from their home in Akron, Ohio. Asked why they came, Dana Richardson said, "Have you ever been to Ohio? There's nothing to do." The Richardsons found out about the event from Sandy's brother, Ron Triplett, who lives in Lusby and works at the nuclear plant.
"I got here and I thought, 'This is the biggest party fest of my life!' " Sandy Richardson said between sips from a beer aboard her brother's boat. "It's just a huge, beautiful party."
Some residents and merchants complain that the Tiki brings trash, drunk trespassers, public urination and occasional sightings of people having sex in yards. Bauer, who said she refuses to book Tiki Bar-goers at her inn, said she wakes to a lawn littered with "bottle after bottle and plastic cup after plastic cup."
About 50 police officers were on duty on Solomons Island yesterday -- on bicycles, motorcycles, in boats and patrolling with dogs. They converted the only road on the island into a one-way loop to keep traffic circulating and ran a shuttle bus to ferry people to the bar from a satellite parking lot. The cost to the county is estimated at $6,000.
Although it is illegal to carry an open container of alcohol, trying to enforce that law in a crowd of thousands is impossible, the sheriff said. So police say they create a temporary buffer area around the Tiki Bar -- including its parking lot, the harbor and the street in front of the bar -- where people can drink with impunity. But several people sipping My-Tais yesterday strolled by police down the main road on the island, well past the buffer zone.
By late last night, authorities reported six arrests, all on drug-related charges.
"The rest of the town is held hostage for one entire day so one person can profit," said Bauer, the innkeeper, adding that most of the Tiki Bar-goers do not spend money in gift stores or shops.
One business that does profit is the China Harbor Restaurant, next door to the Tiki. Owner Yvonne Lee made 1,000 egg rolls yesterday and expected to sell them all.
The Tiki itself expected opening day to bring in about 8 percent of its seasonal total of $400,000, John Taylor said. Joanie Biro, the bar manager, prepared 400 gallons of My-Tais earlier this week and stored them in two rented refrigerated trucks. Biro and her five bartenders were at their posts by noon yesterday and did not move until 1 a.m. today. "We can't see anything but the first four rows of people in front of us, waving money at us, saying, 'Pick me!' "
Standing on the flybridge of his boat yesterday, 22 feet above the fray, Kuzmick watched more boats arrive and try to squeeze into the harbor as the crush around the bar grew thicker. "Isn't this beautiful?" he asked no one in particular.
Tom and Eileen Theis add: Just wanted to let you know that we read your review of the solomons island tiki bar, thought it was great. But you left out the best part of the tiki experience in Solomons, the opening and closing days. They pretty much close down the street (to the grumblings of some neighbors), and the tiki beads and crowds are in abundance. It is an amazing party, everyone has a blast! I hope you get the opportunity to check it out sometime, I encourage everyone to come.Some points about the directions. It does not look out on the bay but the cove off of the bay. The Solomons Island Bridge is not the bottom of the state, but the bridge to St. Mary's County.
Thanks again for the review, we'll send our review after the next opening.
Paul Hurlburt writes: I'm with the Navy Reserve Unit ACU-2 out of Baltimore. On the weekend of August 10-12, we will be taking part with the USMC Historical Co. in "Cradle of Invasion", a wartime reenactment of beach landings at the Naval recreation center at Solomons Island. I'm inquiring if you would be willing to offer any special discounts for those participating in the weekend activities. I anticipate at least 100-150 military/reinactors involved, not including those additional family members expected to attend that weekend. Most people in my unit are familiar with the "Tiki Bar" there in Solomons, but Neptunes Bar and Grille may also be offering discounts that weekend. Since most of us will be relying on transportation by bicycle, your establishment would be much closer and convenient to all. Any special enticement you could provide may bring you a great deal of additional business that weekend. Thank you.