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Tiki tune-up
International Tiki Day is on Aug. 14 across Tampa Bay.
By Daniel Guess
Gearing up to celebrate International Tiki Day—the second Saturday in August— might look something a little like this: A bar outfitted with palm fronds, wooden tikis, and Polynesian knick knacks, sunburnt necks adorned with plumeria and orchids, tropical drinks carved out of Easter Island heads overflowing with overproof rum, citrus, mint, and elaborate garnishes. In some cases you might even get a dolphin carefully molded out of a banana. But beyond the Hawaiian getaway and tiny cocktail umbrellas lies quite a bit of malice and misinformation, along with a conversation raging between the old guard trying to preserve the “culture” of tiki and the new school claiming it was never theirs to begin with.
Before revolutions and civil wars, there was rum. And while it’s easy to think that we have been, and always will be a whiskey drinking town, it is important to understand that this wasn’t always the case. Well before whiskey came into its own, rum was king in the colonies. And while rum fell out of favor for more than a century, its resurgence in the 1930s brought a tropical escapism and a fervor for all things island mystery, mostly in part to notable bar owners Donn Beach (of Don the Beachcomber fame) and Victor Bergeron (Trader Vic’s). Once U.S. servicemen stationed in the Pacific throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s began returning home, they helped fuel a postwar tiki craze that would last the next few decades. And while tiki bars eventually lost out to disco drinks, the just-callit-a-martini era, the neo-speakeasy era, and the craft beer boom, it has made a resounding comeback in the last decade.
Tiki bars seem to be popping up everywhere these days, taking advantage of the tropical climate Florida boasts all year long. Many of them offer a uniquely kitschy approach to their island-tinted drink and design, but rarely do they provide any form of context on what their design and menus are based on; instead they mash up a melting pot version of Pacific and Asian foodways in a shadowy world of cultural appropriation and lack of representation. While this seems like a bold accusation for an establishment serving up frozen mai tais and BBQ spare ribs, many seem to believe these traditions could be better thought out, and much more inclusive.
“There’s so much that goes into what it takes to make a tiki bar: the aesthetics and service style, the music, and the whole culture around it, but it has definitely gotten lost in the American pop culture by taking advantage of it and making it this style of a kitschy party vibe,” says Whitney Hobbs, co-owner of the tropical-themed bar Boat Drinks in Historic St. Augustine. “When you’re doing it right and educating people about it on your menus, being very vocal about your stance, it can have a cool place in our industry.”
Many tiki establishments are starting to feel the backlash from people who feel underrepresented, while tiki’s prominent figures claim to merely be trying to save a drinking style and culture from extinction. But at what cost? Is there a way to bring a tropical style of drinking to people who appreciate it, without reducing the indigenous cultures of Oceania to a few cheeky mugs or an arbitrary painting on the wall?
Ravaging cultures is practically built into rum’s DNA. When the Carribean was first colonized, rum—and its raw materials sugar and molasses—played a major role in a deadly triangular trade that is thought to have captured and sold over 12 million Africans. Not until Great Britain imparted heavy taxes on sugar paired with a growing resistance did the triangle finally fall apart. Just as recently as 2016, the powerhouse Nicaraguan rum company Flor de Caña was the target of a nationwide boycott by bartenders across the country. Exploited workers given little water, rest, or shade were dealt with the difficult and sometimes deadly task of harvesting vast DRINKS amounts of sugar cane for little pay. To consider the plight of all those affected on the pathway of these foodways from the birthplace to your favorite bar seems like a small ask.
“Living in Florida I hate it more,” Hobbs, from Boat Drinks, adds. “There are so many places that Disney-fy it, they just do it because it’s cool and have no understanding of it and are just there for the aesthetic. Martin Cate (Smuggler’s Cove, San Francisco) does a great job and very much educates the patrons through his menus, while the bartenders are well informed enough to discuss the themes with guests. It’s very similar to Jeff [“Beachbum”] Berry and Latitude 29 in New Orleans. That’s how he started, by teaching himself and getting educated. When it’s in a landscape where the staff and the creation of it are genuine, and everyone is there because of the love of the culture and how these drinks came to the U.S. it feels different, because the story of how it all came here is pretty fucking cool.” I’ll be the first to admit that the story is fucking cool, and the drinks are fucking delicious. Some believe this melting pot paradox is exactly what should be celebrated—an exotic yet familiar American invention all thrown in the blender behind the bar. So should talk of appropriation and political correctness make its way into every ounce of rum we drink, or is this another example of cancel culture erasing yet another thing we love? I’m probably the least qualified person to answer these questions. I don’t think tiki is canceled, just in need of a major tune-up. Displaying historical curiosity and showing sympathy to marginalized histories and communities would be a good starting point. Do your homework while supporting networks of representation (pasifikaproject.com is a great place to start), and the next time your local tiki bartender slides a frosted Nui Nui or hand shaken Mai Tai across the bar, quickly consider if that is a Samoan, Maori, or Vietnamese word? Chances are no one behind the bar even thought to ask.
VISIT ST. AUGUSTINE
Garden party
Eden’s $4.5 million makeover leads the latest round of Tampa Bay restaurant news.
By Stephanie Powers at Katlynn Mullins
Extravagant new downtown Tampa nightclub Eden celebrated its grand opening last Friday with a performance featuring “Whole Lotta Money” rapper BIA. The fancy new spot is in the old Franklin Manor location, at 912 N Franklin St., and any stink of the controversy that Manor left was wiped away with a $4.5 million renovation. Eden owners Asad Yusupov and Kevin Stowe, of the Phoenix Hospitality Group, also opened the Asian-fusion Haiku restaurant just a block away in January.
The two-story, paradise-themed club has three sections: Hades (animal skulls, spooky photographs with black leather VIP booths and gold cages), The Ark (12,000 hand-carved wood pieces with a DJ booth and VIP tables), and, of course, the garden of Eden (massive amounts of flowers and vines, a mural by artist Matt Kress and a giant tree garnished with red apples).
“We built Eden to represent choice,” Yusupov said in a release. “We built the entire concept around choice, whether you want to be in the serene, majestic outside with the flowers, or inside, with even more opportunities to explore.”
Throughout, scantily clad Eves of Eden are working hard pouring drinks and dancing on poles. And though the Eves are barely clothed, guests have to follow a strict dress code: no athletic gear, flip flops, jerseys or sunglasses. Leave your yoga pants on the couch.
A food truck run by Haiku is available until late night to soak up specialty cocktails named after the seven sins ("Gluttony" is Ketel One, hibiscus and simple syrups, and lime).
Open Happy’s Ice Cream Next to Sunrise Lanes, Happy’s soft opened last weekend and specializes in small batch creations made with locallysourced ingredients, plus boozy creations. The shop’s cinnamon french toast flavor comes with a vanilla bean base infused with cinnamon sugar, RumChata and Fireball. You can also expect a strawberry flavor made with local strawberries, mint chocolate chip, praline butter pecan and the ever-essential chocolate and vanilla bean. The shop even hinted at a cookies and milk flavor on its Instagram. If you can’t decide on just one flavor, grab a flight and try six. The shop also offers pints to take home with you. 6393 Dr. MLK St. N, St. Petersburg. gethappysnow.com
Reopened Spinners Rooftop Grille After almost a year away, a St. Pete Beach staple has finally reopened along with the all-new Bellwether Beach Resort. Previously the Grand Plaza Hotel, the resort has taken on a new life, and it’s brought with it a new retro-modern design, and an updated Spinners restaurant and Level 11 Bar and Lounge. Spinners made a name for itself since its opening thanks to its revolving dining room, which makes a full rotation every hour, meaning no table is left without a view. Now, diners can enjoy the renovated dining room—which still spins!—along with a fullyredesigned menu meant to place a focus on local food. You can enjoy craft cocktails while you dine, or you can take a trip downstairs to Level 11 (Spinners is on level 12) to experience all the bar and lounge has to offer, though half of that floor is also reserved for Spinners dining. 5250 Gulf Blvd., St Pete Beach. bellwetherbeachresort.com
Coming soon
Chill Bros. Scoop Shop, Shortwave Coffee
Sparkman Wharf and Water Street announced a trio of new tenants last week, including 7th+Grove, Corners Pizza and more—make commitments to open new concepts or locations in Vinik-ville.
Park Blvd. Vegan Deli The local chain has been teasing this opening since February and it just announced a 90-day countdown to opening in Pinellas Park, home to Tampa Bay’s fifth Vegan Deli location, with others in Dunedin, Ybor OPENINGS & CLOSINGS and Brandon. The chain also announced two more locations set for east Orlando and Winter Garden. While an official menu isn’t set, the concept teased vegan sausage biscuits and gravy on its Instagram, along with a philly cheesesteak. The concept also creates packaged eats like fig snausages and location exclusives like Ybor’s mac & cheese pizza. 5900 Park Blvd., Pinellas Park. @parkblvdvegandeli on Instagram SEVEN MARKETING+PR TBA, Taverna Costale is currently looking for an executive chef. Last summer Viviani canceled the opening of his La Pergola Italian restaurant when a co-owner of Nocturnal Group—which was partnering with the chef on the concept—was caught making racist comments amid last summer’s Black Lives Matter protest. Instead of Nocturnal, Viviani has partnered with Brian Henry and Anthony Sandstrom for the opening of Costale. The trio was also behind Vivani concept Chuck Lager’s American Tavern in Wesley Chapel. 200 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. @tavernacostale on Instagram Yard Milkshake Bar Yes, their milkshakes bring everyone (boys included) to the yard. Well, to Carrollwood at least. The Yard—featured on “Shark Tank” back in 2019—is set to open its third Florida location this fall, and if you know anything about the monstrous milkshakes The Yard creates, then you’ll understand what there is to be excited about. From a milk and cookiesthemed creation featuring a chocolate iced jar with Cookie Crisp lining the rim, topped with whipped cream, an ice cream cookie sandwich and mini chocolate chips to a collaboration with Care Bears (dubbed “Cheer Bear”) made with strawberry ice cream and drizzled with rainbow marshmallow cream, the creations are endless. The rim of Cheer Bear’s jar came lined with vanilla icing and rainbow sprinkles and was topped with rainbow whipped cream, a slice of cheesecake, a sour rainbow straw and Teddy Grahams. 13168 N Dale Mabry Hwy., Unit 30, Tampa. theyardmilkshakebar.com
SINS FORGIVEN: Eden has made the old Franklin Manor an afterthought.
Shortwave—a new to the area specialty coffee bar and roaster out of Missouri—opening on the ground floor of Sparkman Wharf, and Chill Bros. opening its third local location at Water Street. The ice cream shop has storefronts in Ybor City and South Tampa, and the new location will be at the base of the 23-story residential and retail tower Cora, at 1011 Cumberland Ave. Orange Theory, the fitness boutique with a cult-like following, was also among the new announcements, which come after a busy round of news that saw several establishments—including C House,
Taverna Costale Celebrity chef Fabio Viviani has tapped St. Petersburg to be the home of this forthcoming Italian restaurant at ground level of an office tower. The 5,900-squarefoot space should open this winter. Viviani told St. Pete Rising development blog that diners can expect both inexpensive and high-end eats from the concept, perfect to “take a date out for a nice steak dinner and an expensive bottle of wine or meet a group of friends for pizza and a beer.” Made-from-scratch pasta and (of course) seafood entrees are also on the menu, and while the exact menu and opening date are ICYMI
Yeoman’s Cask & Lion downtown Tampa location set to add a virtual-reality golf,
plus bar and cafe seating A downtown favorite is growing by about 5,000-square-feet. 23 Restaurant Services—the same group behind Ford’s Garage and Tiki Docks—recently bought out two storefronts connected to the British pub, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal, and is using the extra space to add a bar and extra cafe seating to the already 4,800-squarefoot space. The expansion means the end to neighboring Brightside Artisan Comfort Cafe and City Market Eats (also owned by the parent company), but the beginning of virtual reality golf in the pub space. According to TBBJ, there are also plans to add three VR Topgolf booths. Not bad for Yeoman’s which originated in a tiny space on Davis Island. 202 N Morgan St., Tampa. yeomanscaskandlion.com
REVIEWS PROFILES MUSIC WEEK
Joy, with teeth
DIY scene duo They Hate Change makes the leap to indie giant Jagjaguwar.
By Ray Roa
On Wednesday, They Hate Change released a video for a new single, “Faux Leather.” The four-and-a-half-minute clip—filmed at downtown Tampa’s Wtrcooler Studio—is the follow up to the rap duo’s Godmode Music release 666 Central Ave., which brought international attention to the band after previous independent outings on imprints like Deathbomb Arc.
“Faux Leather” lovingly lambasts luxury brands and industry plants, and it’s also a tip of the cap to some of They Hate Change’s hundreds of influences, particularly the most ambient and out-of-the-box ideas of composers Brian Eno and Pete Namlook. It’s the kind of song the band’s members—Andre and Vonne—have been searching for since they did a six-hour house party DJ set for friends in 2016, and it’s the tune that will formally introduce They Hate Change to its biggest audience ever when “Faux Leather” becomes release No. 411 for Jagjaguwar, the revered indie label that’s been home to Bon Iver, Dinosaur Jr.,Okkervil River, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Black Mountain, Sharon Van Etten plus dozens of others.
In the song’s coda, Vonne and Dre also skewer DSPs and poke at rappers who don’t read their contracts and end up as broke as their fans—an important sentiment to consider in the context of a signing that arrived on the same day They Hate Change was announced as direct support on a five-week U.S. tour headlined by U.K. post-punk band Shame.
“Rappers are as broke as their fans, because they’re signing deals with these labels that are not willing to spend time… even at 100 million streams, which makes you one of the biggest artists out, you’re still getting half of nothing because you signed [a bad deal],” Vonne told Creative Loafing Tampa over drinks at University of Tampa haunt The Retreat. Vonne, together with their bandmate and decade-long best friend Andre, have courted offers from other labels, including majors, but Jagjaguwar made more sense than anything else.
“We care about the catalog,” Andre added, alluding to how Jagjaguwar grows its artists instead of looking for an artist that might deliver a quick payday. The label’s only expectation of the duo is to keep making music with no timetables or complicated contracts to worry about. What stood out about the band’s music to Eric Deines—the A&R rep who signed They Hate Change—were the touchstones of Bangs & Works Chicago footwork compilations on the
LOCAL MUSIC Planet Mu label. Deines considers Vol. 1 of that B&W comp a seminal collection from the last two decades, and he heard it immediately in They Hate Change. He also picked up on the unbridled happiness which They Hate Change has cultivated over the last few years playing DIY house and garage shows across Tampa Bay. “I’ve called it ‘joy with teeth’ a few times. It’s a rare thing—and highly contagious,” Deines added. That exuberance was on full display during Jagjaguwar’s initial Zoom calls with They Hate Change, when the topic of obscure and essential chillwave pioneer Small Black came up. Deines was talking about Jamila Woods—a singer and poet who brought rappers Noname and Saba to her Jagjaguwar releases—but then he mentioned how the label also released Small Black’s 2010 debut, New Chain. Vonne and Andre were both just 16 years old when that record came out, but they later discovered Small Black and even own signed copies of the album. “We howled,” Deines said. “We’re just fans and junkies for that music in general,” Andre added. It’s also a near certainty that They Hate Change will pick up fans during the run with “Our music is at once Shame which travels from for the heads, and for Seattle, down the West Coast and across the everybody.” southern border before looping back up through the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard ahead of wrapping in New Orleans. Vonne and Andre won’t say exactly what else is up their sleeve for Jagjaguwar in 2022, only divulging that they’ve arrived at the sound They Hate Change has been barrelling towards for the last five years. Deines rightfully points out that the duo
GEORGE GOLDBERG
FAUX SURE: Vonne (L) and Andre will undoubtedly make Tampa Bay proud on their U.S. tour with Shame.
has “been in the game for a bit longer than meets the eye,” but until “Faux Leather,” Andre and Vonne had been in their bedroom studio— surrounded by their Rhodes, Akai samplers (S2800, CD3000xl), Korgs (MS-20, R3), Ableton rig, Moog and floppy disks—dissecting Roland 707 and 909 beats and weaving the sounds of footwork, grime and ambient music into nine releases under the They Hate Change banner. Indie influences, together with other homestate flavors (Jam Pony Express, Buck Sosa, Gitt Fai) and their deep love for crank, jungle, downbeat even the Balearic textures of Ibiza’s lounge scene were also part of a search for a sound that led them to 666 Central Ave.—all of it a bridge to the next chapter for the duo. And you don’t have to be a record store nerd to connect.
“Our music is at once for the heads, and for everybody,” Vonne said, reiterating that, “Everyone can get it, and the heads can really get it.”
And if you’re from Tampa Bay, you ought to get behind it before the rest of the world catches up.
