Escaping into Escapism in San Francisco

These are the eight tropical Bay Area bars to know.

I recently returned home after two weeks in San Francisco.

It was a weird time to be away for so long. My daily doomscroll brought the usual ever-worsening news, plus reports of emptying ports—which I could confirm with my own eyes during ferry rides across the Bay—and impending empty grocery-store shelves, plus urgings to stock up on essentials (which, away from home, there was no way I could act on, and which apparently I should’ve done: If anyone overstocked on Colgate Total Fresh Mint toothpaste, let me know; I can offer plenty of Ghirardelli chocolate in return).

My stress levels ratcheted up in a way they usually don’t when I’m traveling. I needed an escape.

Fortunately, I happened to be in a good place for that. (Geographically, if not so much mentally.) San Francisco is home to an epicenter of escapism: It was one of the original hotbeds of tiki, back in the day, and it has retained perhaps a higher number of those sorts of bars and their descendants than anywhere else in the US.

Nearly every evening of my trip saw me taking refuge in a bar that temporarily took me far away from the present moment and geopolitical situation.

These are, in no particular order, eight such bars to know.

The famous original mai tai. (Do not order this. Get literally anything else.)

Trader Vic’s

This is one of the few remaining outposts of the well-known tiki chain, and it contains plenty of artifacts from the original Oakland location, where the mai tai was initially created by Victor Bergeron in 1944.

I expected it to be the worst kind of tourist trap.

But I quickly realized that it’s too far away from anything, over in Emeryville, to be easily reached by casual visitors; the people who make the trek go there with intention. And I learned that if you keep your expectations low, as I admittedly did, this place might far exceed them.

The restaurant (for it’s much more a restaurant than a bar) is a sprawling space with a few different rooms; the one I was in had woven bamboo ceilings, turtle shells and mounted fish on the walls, and a few South Pacific-style decorations here and there. It’s kitschy, a little cheesy, but considerably less so than some other places I visited on the same trip.

Skip the famed mai tai; it tasted of sweet-and-sour mix and arrived at my table so quickly I assume it was poured straight out of a pitcher. Fortunately, the other drinks I tried were much more up to modern cocktail standards; the menu spanning several pages has plenty of other options, both traditional and new creations. I was particularly fond of the Tropic Gold, described on the menu as “A juicy blend of citrus, pineapple, gold rum, and spices topped with our house-made banana whipped cream.” The food—think crab rangoons and various stir-fried dishes—was better than I’d expected, too.

The best part: It’s on the edge of a marina, a beautiful setting a full mile away from the rest of the world. You can gaze at the boats while watching the sunset and dream of sailing to warmer waters far, far away.

Escapism level: 7/10, largely for the waterfront setting.

Best for: A quirky birthday celebration or a sunset-hour dinner date with a touch of slightly Disneyfied tropical fun.

The piña colada at Tradr Sam

Tradr Sam

Apparently this Richmond spot used to actually be a “real” tiki bar (and in fact the internet tells me it’s considered the oldest surviving tiki bar in the world, having opened in 1937), but now it’s basically a dive-y sports-y bar that happens to serve, um, “renditions” of classic tiki drinks.

The mai tai (the menu listed its ingredients as rum, apricot brandy, sweet & sour mix, and pineapple juice; Bergeron is spinning in his grave) was the popular order when I was there, glowing an odd sangria-like red. I opted instead for the piña colada, which was entirely drinkable but I swear I saw a scoop of vanilla ice cream go into the blender along with the other ingredients.

Three TV screens, each showing a different sport, occupy the center of a horseshoe bar; a smattering of tables and a neon-trimmed jukebox stand against the bamboo walls adorned near the ceiling with tropical palm-tree murals. Bowls of popcorn (stale) and pretzels (untried) are placed along the bar and left mostly untouched.

It’s a dive, but at least it knows it, and the bar remains charming in its faded-glory grunginess. In retrospect, I wish I’d stayed longer and tried more ice-cream-supplemented tropical cocktails.

Escapism level: 4/10, but so, to me, is your average dive bar.

Best for: When you want the mood of a dive but you also want your drink to come with a paper umbrella.

The Fluffy Banana at Smuggler’s Cove

Smuggler’s Cove

People love this place. Perhaps too many people, which means that even early on a weekday you have to endure a lengthy queue to get in and you also have to deal with an overabundance of shouting Hawaiian-shirted guys once you’re inside.

The space has three floors and two bars. You definitely want to be at the lively main-floor bar, with its pirate-ship beams, ropes, and barrels layered beneath the high ceiling and an anchor in one corner. The downstairs one, with its low ceilings and absent adornment (I’m guessing the intent is a ship’s-hold effect) is a little lacking in décor, vibes and, during the visit I was down there, hospitality.

The cocktails on the long, long menu are among the city’s best tiki drinks. (So they deserved better than the lazy two-second shake the downstairs bartender was doing.) The Rum Barrel (ingredients given as “rums, fresh juices, Caribbean spices”; the exact components are kept a secret) is the house specialty; the tasty Dr. Barca’s Fluffy Banana (cachaça, banana liqueur, coconut, lemon, bitters) seemed to be the most popular. The bar also has a vast collection of rums, purportedly more than 1000, which is undoubtedly its most significant appeal.

Escapism level: 6/10 (main level); 2/10 (downstairs); both scores would have been higher if I hadn’t constantly wanted to also escape all of the people surrounding me.

Best for: If you’re a certain Type of Guy, it’s apparently the place for loudly bragging about the number of rum bottles you own and schooling the bartender on the extremely particular way you take your mai tais. For true rum aficionados, it’s great for drinking rums you won’t get your hands on anywhere else.

The Banana Be’ at Pagan Idol

Pagan Idol

This downtown bar is also extremely popular. But unlike the others, I’d actually suggest you go here during peak times, because that’s when the back room will be open. (When, exactly, might that be? There doesn’t seem to be a consistent answer.)

If only the front room is open when you’re there, however, that’s not the worst thing. The curved wood-paneled walls are adorned with kraken sconces, and a stained-glass rendering of a peacock overlooks it all from behind the bar; the effect is that of a sunken pirate ship. (If this all sounds a bit like Sunken Harbor Club Lite, that’s not inaccurate.)

The back room, however, is where the full tropical-island glory lives, with twinkling “stars” on the ceiling and a couple of enclosed thatched-roof “huts” holding banquettes; the most covetable table is the one on an elevated platform next to a small waterfall (or perhaps it’s meant to be a volcano? Unclear). There’s a large tiki idol in the middle of the room; it seems that word hasn’t yet reached most places in SF about how the cultural-appropriation aspect of tiki isn’t a thing we’re doing anymore.

The cocktails, the ingredients of which will all be familiar to tiki-drink fans even if the specific combinations aren’t, are all solid. The Banana Be’ (Caribbean rum blend, banana liqueur, cinnamon, coconut, pineapple, butterscotch) has become my go-to there; on my last visit I tried and loved The Bird (tequila, pineapple and strawberry cachaça, lemon, grapefruit, guava, coconut), which was topped with a generous dollop of hibiscus whipped cream. (“Go make ‘em jealous,” the bartender with a diner-waitress vibe told me as she sent me forth with the envy-inducing drink into the thick tech-worker crowd.)

Oh yes, that crowd. While the best aspect of the bar’s location is its proximity to downtown, if that’s where your office or hotel is located, that’s its worst aspect as well. Each time I’ve been, my fellow drinkers were mostly large groups of awkward mid-20s men in polo shirts.

Escapism level: 6/10; the omnipresent groups of tech guys kept bringing an unwelcome intrusion of reality into the tropical fantasyland.

Best for: Those working or staying downtown, since it’s likely no more than a five-minute stroll away.

The Coco Pandan at Zombie Village

Zombie Village

If you like the back room at Pagan Idol, you’ll love this bar, a few blocks from Union Square. It’s from the same team, and the entire bar is basically a more hardcore version of PI’s back room and the most immersively Polynesian tiki bar I visited in the city.

There is not a single space or surface in this bar that doesn’t shout “tiki!” Stars twinkle on the ceiling above the palm-fronded bar—the stools on one side of which are chairs basically still in log form. Eight enclosed thatch-roofed huts with benches, fitting groups from two to six, line a wall. A back “cave” area glows. Tiki idols abound. Surf-rock covers of popular songs play over the speakers. There’s an upstairs area that I’m told is even more bonkers than the rest, but it was closed for a private party when I was there.

The relatively small menu includes a fair number of tiki classics (the mai tai, painkiller, and nui nui are all here) and also some drinks that veer far from the standards. You could think of Desert Oasis (mezcal, charanda, lemon, prickly pear, aloe, chipotle, nopales) as Mexican-tropical; the Coco Pandan (Barbados rum, coconut milk, pandan, coconut rum liqueur) comes garnished with a housemade coconut-lychee popsicle. There’s even a jungle bird in the style of a clarified milk punch, which tbh I found more intellectually interesting than delicious, but I admire the intent.

This bar goes way harder in both its décor and its drinks than does Pagan Idol. It’s quieter, and the crowd far less obnoxious. I only made it here once on this trip, but I’m already looking forward to returning on future visits to the city.

Escapism level: 9/10

Best for: A date night in the very best one of the “huts,” a two-seater that’s somehow behind the others in its own little private nook where you can truly leave the world outside.

The Diver’s Dilemma (a special) at Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island

Martin Cate is the bartender and rum expert behind Smuggler’s Cove, and he was also a founder of Forbidden Island, which he opened in 2006 before he opened its more famous successor three years later.

This bar is on Alameda, an island near Oakland that was a naval base for 50 years. You can take a 20-minute ferry there from downtown San Francisco, and then a seven-minute Uber to the bar. A theory I hope to someday definitively prove: Tiki is best when partaken in on an actual island.

Forbidden Island features a long, long bar with the ubiquitous “thatched roof” effect above it, plus the also-ubiquitous colored-glass-buoy lamps, Polynesian-infulenced décor, and a few enclosed booths in the style of tiki huts. This all felt familiar a few days and bar visits into my trip, but what really sets this bar apart in terms of the space is its glorious large outdoor patio. There’s also a TV at one end of the bar showing old surf movies, and the ceiling is lined with dollar bills, making for a very slightly divey effect.

The drinks were decidedly classic-tiki-inspired, but many employed ingredients less common to the genre—tamarind, Chambord, Becherovka, etc—that rendered them a little more adventurous than at many places. I adored the Love Punch (“a bevy of rums,” Campari, coconut, lime, pineapple, grenadine) and the Arrow in the Knee (151, allspice, lime, fassionola). The Diver’s Dilemma (a special), employs the bar’s Copalli barrel pick, Hamilton 86, allspice, Chareau, citrus, and Demerara sugar, and it knocked me onto my ass harder (and perhaps more deliciously) than any other drink ever has. Beware the drinks denoted on the menu as “five-skull”; they’ll render any further plans for your evening inadvisable or impossible, although they sure will make the return ferry trip fun.

It's also another good place for rum nerds. The bar’s collection isn’t nearly as vast as that at Smuggler’s Cove, but you’re likely to find a few bottles you haven’t tried before.

Honestly, it was my favorite tiki bar I visited in the Bay Area, occupying what, for my tastes, is the ideal spot on the grid of low-key vs. immersive, divey vs. sophisticated, and classic cocktails vs. more adventurous ones, with good hospitality to boot. I can’t wait to keep returning.

Escapism level: 8/10

Best for: When you need to leave it all behind, literally as well as figuratively. Nothing beats a journey best done by boat and strong, delicious rum drinks once you’re there.

A piña colada at Tonga Room

Tonga Room

At the very top of Nob Hill sits the luxurious Fairmont Hotel. This bar is in the hotel’s basement, in an area that was formerly its swimming pool until it was converted into the Tonga Room in the mid-’40s, right around the time the mai tai was being created across the bay.

That old swimming pool is now a “lagoon,” in the middle of which floats a (genuinely kind of cool) South Pacific-styled boat, which holds what is basically a wedding band belting out covers of ’80s hits. Thatch-roofed tables surround this lagoon, as do strings of colored lights; if you don’t want to pay the $15 per person cover charge for a table, you’ll be standing at the bar end of the pool, on what I presume was once intended to be a dance floor, crowded in with several dozen other people.

It's everything I was afraid Trader Vic’s would be.

The drinks are notoriously atrocious and also expensive; I can’t comment on the food but the general internet consensus is that it’s just as bad. I learned after my visit that the bartenders will sometimes agree to an off-menu drink order, such as a split-base mai tai; it’s the only way to get something that’s not prebatched. If you must order from the menu, the piña colada is drinkable if far from great.

It’s tacky in a way that makes you wonder whether it’s in on its own joke or if it genuinely believes it’s great. I found it kind of awful, but I could also envision getting into it, at least in an ironic way, on the right night if I were in the right mood.

In any case, it’s a place you go to witness the spectacle—which, sure, is a must-do of sorts, like stopping by Times Square is for tourists in NYC. One drink provides enough time for taking it all in (including an indoor “thunderstorm”; you’ll see), and then you can assure yourself you’ve checked it off your list and can flee elsewhere.

Escapism level: 3/10

Best for: Judging by the crowd that was there, it’s great for getting a post-convention drink with your colleagues at a place where there’s so much going on both visually and aurally that you don’t need to make much awkward conversation with them.

The Grifter’s Game at Last Rites

Last Rites

This one gets full points for immersiveness. It’s among the newest tropical bars in the city, and its creators wisely chose to avoid the traditional Polynesian-appropriative trappings; instead, the concept is plane-crash-in-the-jungle, such that the bar appears to be built from a fuselage, and the bar stools are repurposed vintage airplane seats, retaining even their seat numbers and (no longer functioning) recline buttons. (Mine had audio/channels controls embedded in the armrest, too—remember when that was a thing?) A perfect pilot’s announcement over the loudspeaker proclaiming the end of happy hour was the icing on the cake.

The bar doesn’t go light on the jungle notion, either. Plants (Real? Fake? Who cares!) line every wall, arching over booths (not huts!) and covering pillars. Skulls (fake) throughout imply the fate of at least some of the crashed plane’s passengers.

Its drinks are certainly tropical and tiki-inspired, but you’ll find nearly as many drinks with mezcal or even pisco as their base spirit as you will rum ones. There’s a whiskey-based drink with pandan, coconut, lemon, and passionfruit; a strawberry-and-coconut Ramos riff; an uncannily accurate non-alc jungle bird. There’s also a separate happy-hour menu with some classics: ti’ punch, a daiquiri, a mai tai twist, etc.

The soundtrack was a little off-theme when I was there, playing twee late-aughts tunes—basically every band I saw play the Prospect Park Bandshell in the summer of 2008; perhaps the plane crashed in 2011 with the only music available being the previous few years’ tunes on an iPod? And the hospitality was a little too lackadaisical for me to feel truly welcome or comfortable. Still, I settled in well enough that I ended up staying a drink past when I’d originally intended to leave. It’s a fun spot.

Escapism level: 9/10, both for the wild décor and for the music letting me feel like I was escaping timewise back to the Obama-administration era.

Best for: Impressing friends with its wild decor; for those who want good tropical drinks without culturally appropriative tiki trappings; also for those who want a very good and reasonably priced happy-hour drink.

***

Note 1: Many people and at least one popular website call Pacific Cocktail Haven (aka PCH) a tiki bar. This baffles me. Sure, it incorporates flavors from Asia and the Pacific Islands into most of its drinks, but that simply makes it a top-end cocktail bar that employs those flavors, not a tiki bar. I love PCH, but I have not included it on this list because I don’t consider it to be anything close to tiki.

Note 2: I learned a few things over the course of this extended tiki bar crawl, the most important of which is probably this: When in doubt, order a piña colada. A badly made piña colada is infinitely more delicious than, say, a badly made mai tai, daiquiri, or other drink that relies heavily on balance, yet will still tell you a lot about the bar.