When Polynesian palaces captivated the Motor City 

The werewolf of London isn’t the only one who loved tiki bars, as Warren Zevon crooned in his famous song of the same name.  

In the 1960s Detroit was home to several tiki bars with exotic names like Hawaiian Gardens, the Tropics, Chin Tiki, Mauna Loa and — of course — Trader Vic’s. And, yes, you could get a piña colada, along with other exotic drinks like the Scorpion, the Volcano and the legendary Mai Tai.  

Of course, rum was a common ingredient of tiki bars, along with kitschy decorations, waterfalls, pearl divers, fake volcanoes, sarongs and lots of bamboo. Guarding the entrance to tiki bars was the tiki figurine, which took lots of artistic license from bar to bar. As you entered the faux tropical bars, you often would cross a bamboo bridge to dining room, where you would order drinks and food from lavish menus.  

Today, those unique trinkets like tiki mugs, menus, swizzle sticks, menus and postcards are highly sought after by tiki collectors worldwide. 

Detroiter Renee Tadey is one of those dedicated collectors. For the last five years, Tadey has been collecting tiki items to display in her home, along with other mid-century items. Tadey took her obsession one step further and recently wrote a book, “Detroit Tiki: A History of Polynesian Palaces & Tropical Cocktails.” 

“I have a great appreciation for Detroit history, but tiki culture is my main interest — they are legendary,” she said in a recent interview.  

Tadey spent several years researching and locating photographs and artwork from local collectors and former employees and owners of Detroit tiki bars. She said it was easy to find memorabilia from collectors, but finding personal photographs from those who frequented the tiki bars are as rare as the Chin Tiki mug her husband snagged for her last Christmas. 

The author divides her book into categories that give a historic view of tiki bars, then she looks at specific Detroit area tiki bars. In telling the history, she dispels the theory that tiki bars were started by returning army GIs who had spent time in the South Pacific.  

The first tiki bar in the U.S. can be traced to California in 1933, the year Prohibition ended, when Donn Beach opened Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood. Shortly after, Victor Bergeron opened Trader Vic’s in Oakland, California, helping fuel tiki culture with the invention of the Mai Tai in 1944. 

Bar owners who had never seen anything west of California borrowed designs from the flush of new movies and television series set in exotic isles, like “Blue Hawaii,” “Hawaiian Eye” and “Hawaii Five-O.” 

Tadey begins her journey with a look at Detroit’s first tiki bar, The Tropics, which opened in 1941 in the Hotel Wolverine. Tadey quotes a newspaper article detailing the lush, tropic interior: “Giant palm tree and bamboo huts, throbbing drums and gay colors, waitresses in sarongs and Hawaiian leis … lent atmosphere to this club which bid fair to be the gathering place with those with the South Seas on their minds.” Tadey discovered that the Tropics had a bandstand that rose three stories like an elevator. It was the definition of class in Detroit. 

Tadey also details the arrival of the Hawaiian Gardens in 1960 in nearby Holly, a planned community that started with the massive tiki restaurant and bar. The Gardens was a product of a dreamer and inventor, Fred Barton, who relocated to Detroit to be near the auto industry after inventing the popular auto radiator leak preventer Bar’s Leaks. The Gardens’ entrance was marked with a gigantic wooden outrigger canoe and bar-restaurant could seat 1,200. 

Not to be outdone, the Chin Tiki opened in downtown Detroit in 1966 and soon became the city’s most popular tiki nightclub. Marvin Chin, the restaurant’s founder, was a plant manager at Ford Motor Co. He was also a master showman. 

Visitors entered the grand entrance marked with giant tiki torches, and every square inch inside was covered with tiki art. Although Chin Tiki closed in 1980, it arose again when in 2002 it was used for several scenes in Eminem’s film “8 Mile.” In 2009, the property was sold to the Illich family organization, Olympia Development LLC, and demolished. 

Detroit’s last notable tiki bar, Mauna Loa, opened to great acclaim in 1967, underwritten to the tune of $2.25 million by investors led by Detroit professional athletes, including Al Kaline, the book says. By 1971, according to the book, the restaurant went bankrupt. The exquisite site, marked by a large outdoor lagoon and massive thatched hut, went “aloha,” as Tadey writes. 

At the height of the tiki era, most major cities had some version of a tiki bar, Tadey said. Lansing’s own, the Boom Boom Room, opened in 1960. Its closure some 25 years later left devotees of its signature drink, The Flaming Orgy, saddened.