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This is an archive - these pages are no longer updated!
Some information will be out of date.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.
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Tonga Room
San Francisco, CAFull review and history of Tonga Room
is available in the book, Tiki Road Trip
June, 2000:
scroll down for August 2001 update
All of the most legendary of the remaining Tiki Bars are now on this site; but fear not, dear reader, I am not even close to giving up - I am sure there are still plenty of surprises awaiting me, there are still plenty of Tiki Bars left to explore, and if the remaining sites are second-tier establishments, well, that isn’t bad at all - a second tier Tiki Bar is still miles ahead of any other libationary location I can think of.
So - The Tonga Room!
I had heard mixed reviews of The Tonga Room over the years. Some people stated that it was the greatest of all possible Tiki Bars; others stated that is was a run down dump! My own conclusions are somewhat more moderate. Although it is a spectacular sight to behold, the Tonga Room doesn't quite measure up to the Mai Kai (Ft. Lauderdale), or the Kahiki (Columbus). It might be on a par with the Bali Hai (Santiago, Chile) and the Jardin Tiki (Montreal), however. For those of you in Chicago who remember the Kona Kai, I might put the Tonga Room in a category very close to, and only slightly above, that fondly missed establishment.
My reasons for this are due to the fact that the Tonga Room and Kona Kai are both in hotels, they are about the same size, the prices and quality of both food and drink are similar, and the TiPSY™ (Tikis Per Square Yard) Factors are similar.
The Tonga Room might have an edge over the Kona Kai for two reasons. Number one, the Tonga Room is still open to the public, and number two, the Tonga Room has a somewhat better atmosphere to it. The Kona Kai was always fairly bright, and although the ceiling was decorated with the usual array of floats, outriggers, lamps, and whatnot, you still always got the feeling you were in a restaurant. The Tonga Room might have taken a few cues from Disney's theme parks when designing their room; the ceiling is very high, and painted black. Strategic lighting on the row of ‘Tiki Huts’ along the right wall, and the single large ‘Tiki Hut’ on the left wall, make one feel as though they are in a small Polynesian Village at night. The effect is very good.
Completing the atmosphere is the much-ballyhooed large square pond that dominates the center of the room (which used to be a swimming pool for hotel guests). Yes, there is a small shack in the center of the pond, and yes, a simply dreadful band (drums, keyboard, and vocals) still performs there nightly. Every half hour, thunder effects replace the music, strobe lights simulate lightning, and a series of sprinklers around the perimeter of the pool gush forth a cube of ‘rain’. This bi-hourly event is unique among Tiki Bars I have visited, and is the Tonga Room's chief claim to fame.
The actual bar area is towards the front of the establishment, and has a nice rocky motif to it. A huge TV (as always) knocks a few points from Tonga's final ranking.
The drinks were average at best, and rather small. I was there during Happy Hour, and tried a Mai Tai (but of course), a Zombie, and a Scorpion. They were adequate, but nothing special. At $4.95 they were priced somewhat reasonably, but even Hala Kahiki - a top-rated bar who’s main flaw is their weak drinks - gives you a bigger drink for that price. Mr. T says “I pity the fool who spends ten clams for these drinks during regular hours!”.
I didn't have dinner, but I did indulge in the buffet. All the usual Cantonese appetizers are there, along with a veggie plate. Not bad for six bucks, especially if you load up twice!
Further comments on the Tonga Room, as originally posted by Tiki Bar Review Pages readers, remain below for further insight (as does an August 2001 update).
August 2001:
I visited the Tonga Room for the second time fourteen months after my first visit. This time I planned to spend a little more time there, sample the food, and do my heroic best to find merit in the entertainment.
I was also pleased that almost ten members of Tiki Central came out for a brief Happy Hour meeting of the minds. Most of them left promptly just before 8:00, to avoid paying the cover charge for the miserable band, an act so bad as to be beyond campy-bad and well into the realm of just-plain-annoying.
I definitely noticed a lot of architectural details and artifacts that I hadn't seen the previous time I visited the Tonga Room, and really enjoyed reveling in the atmosphere. The rainstorm thing continues to charm my sour and jaded old heart.
BUT, to cut right to the chase, I was extremely disappointed in the service, the drinks, and the food. The drinks I was paying $8 for (after happy hour) were served in little coconuts, and were (only) half filled with some foul and apparently alcohol-free concoction. It didn't matter what we ordered, they were all pretty much the same, and they were all miserable.
The maitre'd seemed really unhappy to seat the remaining four of us at our table (after the majority of the group had departed from the bar area to destinations unknown). The food we were served was typical Cantonese fare, which is not unusual for a standard type III Tiki Bar, but for a restaurant that pretends to be a fine dining establishment in a very exclusive hotel, this food was simply shit, and ridiculously overpriced shit at that. Even the Omni Hut, located in a backwater town in Tennessee, has better Chinese food!
I had been so enraptured with the decor and the 'vibe' of the place last time I was there, that I didn't really notice how rude the service is, and how truly pathetic the drinks are. This time I did notice, and adding insult to injury, I suffered through the food as well.
Definitely go to Tonga Room if you're a Tikiphile. It is really cool - as a vintage Tiki artifact and as a shining example of the mid-century Tiki vibe. But expect to get ripped off on the beverages, annoyed by the band, disrespected by the staff, and for god's sake, man, don't eat the food!
Steve Stanton <steves@tippett.com> writes:
Apart from the "old" Kelbo's in Los Angeles, this is the REAL DEAL. When you walk in from the street, there is Tiki Garden at one end of the hall decorated with colored lights, but the real treat is when you walk in to the Tonga Room entrance. Large Tiki God statues, a "cliffside" bar, ship's deck dancing floor, table-huts, and a FULL-SIZE LAGOON in the middle of the restaurant with thunderstorms (yes lightning, thunder, and REAL rain) every half-hour. And if that wasn't enough, the band (led by the smooth tones of their beautiful Pacific-Asian vocalist) comes out into the lagoon on a raft!
It's 100% cheese, but expensive cheese. It's a popular spot for tourists--with no bargains on the menu, and since this is THE Fairmont, it's kept in tip-top shape. It was built in the 40's, I believe, but there isn't a spec of dust to be found. But the atmosphere alone makes it worth the expense. They go the whole nine yards here, with specially carved tiki glasses/mugs/etc.
If you're ever in San Francisco, check it out! --
Tom Shirley adds:In 1961 when I was 16 I moved from my hometown, Altus, Arkansas, to the Bay Area. I lived there a year, with relatives, attended high school (11th grade) and worked. I thought San Francisco was the most exotic place on earth, especially Chinatown. Hayseed in the big city. Near the end of the school year came the junior prom. I went with a group of friends to the Tonga Room in the Fairmont Hotel, high atop Nob Hill in San Francisco. I'd never seen anything even CLOSE to the Tonga Room, and I was amazed. Besides the typical tiki restaurant decor, there was an oblong pool in the center of the restaurant, not for swimming but for a thatch roofed boat from which a Hawaiian band played hokey island music. The boat moved along the pool, and occasionally fake rain would fall on the boat's thatched roof, along with thunder-and-lightening effects. We were served overpriced Sweet & Sour Something Or Other, and non-alcoholic drinks with - you know the drill - fruit and little umbrellas. Even though I recognized the extreme bad taste of the whole thing, I was impressed.
36 years later, in 1997, my company sent me to San Francisco for a week's training. I stayed at the Fairmont, and was amazed to find that the Tonga Room is still there! But I learned from a hotel room brochure that, in fact, the Tonga Room has been there since something like 1947. Of course I HAD to visit the Tonga Room, and I was struck by how little it has changed. I think I even sat at the same table as in 1961. The pool, boat and tropical storm effects are still there, too, but this time the band was a workman-like pop combo playing standard hits, including "I Left My Heart In San Francisco," of course. I had Sweet & Sour Something Or Other again, and this time a rum drink with, that's right, fruit-and-little-umbrella. I mean, how often do you get to actually LIVE a deja vu?
Mike Remmel elaborates:
There is a bar and small lounge near the dance floor, with tables taking up the rest of the area around a large water filled lagoon. Every 20 minutes there is thunder and lightning and it rains into the lagoon from the ceiling- a fun effect.
There is a live band that plays dance music from a bamboo hut boat that floats in the middle. It's on a motorized track so that when they want to get off, an employee just motors them over to the side of the lagoon and they step off. They were fun to dance to.
They have the volcano bowl drink for four people which was the way to start out. It's very tasty with lots of alcohol and they fill it to the brim. The three of us got a very good buzz off of that bowl. They have another large drink called a Hurricane that comes in a great glass that you get to take home- it's a nice souvenir. The Bora Bora is another recommended drink.
Like Trader Vic's, they are pricey, but excellent drinks and the atmosphere is top notch. They have a web site now that includes a way to see a 360 degree "virtual view" of the entire room- taken from the middle of the lagoon. Check it out.
Dave Monk contributes:This is a great site, and a lot of fun. I enjoyed reading comments about the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel in San Fran. I'd been looking forward to visiting the lounge for some time, and finally had an opportunity last year. I really had a great time. My only complaint, though, was the floating band played marginal pop tunes all night, and it nearly ruined the exotic atmosphere. I think it was the rousing version of "YMCA" that put me over. Maybe they'll play some Martin Denny next time.
Dana Sixty adds further enlightenment:You aren't quite prepared for the dark, mysterious Tonga Room when you first enter the posh Fairmont Hotel. But inside, the thatched hut roofs, trickling pools and tiki-clad interior beckons one to rest awhile in bamboo chairs that Ricardo Montelbahn would be pleased to lounge, over a fruity, umbrella-clad cocktail - which comes served in pineapples or fun mugs. The best drinks are the large fishbowl ones for two, complete with two straws whose diameter is so large they seem better suited to inhaling small pieces of fruit! You can also take part in the happy hour buffet. Drinks are cheaper then, too.
The piece de resistance here is a central pool in which a floating, thatched roof bandstand floats, often complete with a live band. Water and electricity...a dangerous mix, especially when you consider that every 30 minutes a tropical rainstorm erupts, where it actually rains inside the restaurant over the pool, and comes complete with simulated thunder and lightning. The pool was an interesting part of the original restaurant from the 1960s where bathing beauties used to swim and frolic gracefully in the pool as one dined.
Expensive, yes - especially with the $3 cover charge and 1 drink minimum - but it's worth a visit, simply for the wonderfully kitschy tropical atmosphere.
Andrew Rosenfield chimes in with:Located in the "basement" of the Fairmont Hotel, the Tonga room is an SF landmark.
Built in the 40's and remodeled in the late '60's (with the help of Oceanic Arts in S.Cal) the Tonga is in fact both a restaurant and bar. The bar area takes up the front half of the room, with the dining area in the back, making a u shape around the indoor(!) lagoon.
The atmosphere is great--- dark lighting, carved tiki's, thatched roofs, and, flanking a small dance floor, the masts of an old schooner.
Within the centrally located lagoon is a floating, thatched roof bandstand, and scattered under the water are giant clam shells. Every 20 minutes, thunder booms, lightning flashes, and "rain" flows into the pool from concealed sprinklers in the ceiling--An indoor tropical rainstorm!
The Tonga room offers a happy hour from 5-7p M-F and that is when it is most crowded. Drinks are $4.75 and DO NOT come in Tiki mugs during happy hour. (With the exception of the Scorpion Bowl and other drinks for 2 or more) The drink menu reads like a greatest hits list. Bora Bora Horror, Mai Tai, Blue Hawaii, Temi Temi Ubangi(?), Tonga Itch, and lots more. They are not kidding around here. The drinks are good and strong--be sure to pace yourself.
There is a buffet for $6 that offers potstickers, chicken wings, noodles, egg rolls and the like. In the old days,(early '90's!) this used to be free. However, a few too many people ate dinner there( if you know what I mean), and it is now $6. Whatever, it is worth it, because after a few "Bora Bora Horrors" or "Tonga Itch's" you will be glad you ate something. Non happy hour prices are expensive, $7-$9 for drinks, but they come in real "Tiki" style glassware. Resist the urge too take these mugs home though. They have had so much theft that they are considering removing them altogether. That would SUCK. If you really want one, you can buy something similar from this web site and show your support for James!!
The Tonga restaurant serves Trader Vic's type food, and is expense account territory. The floating band comes on at 8pm nightly and there is a $3 cover charge.
Next time you are in the SF area, be sure to check it out. The Tonga is a real piece of history, and a place that Tiki lovers everywhere will enjoy!
All images courtesy of James