It might be the biggest tiki event you’ve never heard of, but it’s an annual event that draws hundreds of people from up and down the west coast since 2006…
This year’s Sacramento Ohana Tiki Crawl was a three-day event spanning 11 locations. It’s the longest running tiki bar crawl in Northern California. It’s a well-organized event with around two hours at each location, followed by a 30-minute gap, giving you time to get to the next location. Each home bar features a cocktail and some small bites, with some locations also featuring a tiki vendor selling merchandise. Attendees were encouraged to bring their own tiki mugs – and to use designated drivers or ride-sharing services.
This year’s event started on Friday, October 4 with three home tiki bars in southern Sacramento. This really got the weekend off to a great start, and gave people traveling to the location a place to land no matter what time they arrived. The last location (9:30 – 11:30 pm) was packed with 130 people!
Saturday’s festivities started at 11:00 am and ran all the way through five home tiki bars all the way to 11:00 pm. This was a long day but as a first-time attendee it was totally worth it to see all the homes and their bars. The crawl started in Roseville, north of Sacramento and worked southwest all the way to downtown. The day was beautiful, and several locations included pools or hot tubs to relax in (for toes at least).
Most of the homes are mid-century or mid-century inspired, so besides the bars the rest of the homes also had interesting features and decor.
The event concluded on Sunday morning with a meetup at midtown apparel store Swangberg’s on J, which features aloha wear, tiki mugs, and other items of interest. Then it was off to The Jungle Bird two blocks away for drinks and a Hawaiian-inspired lunch.
The Jungle Bird is Sacramento’s tiki bar, where the Sacramento Ohana group meet every Sunday at 4:00 pm. Bartenders from The Jungle Bird made guest appearances at a couple of the home bar stops as well. Finally, the last home tiki bar location was held at 3:30 pm for a final opportunity to ooh and ah, to have a beverage, and get in the last hugs until next year’s crawl.
I’ve never had the pleasure of attending a tiki crawl event like this one, where the crawl isn’t attached to a larger tiki event like Tiki Kon. But this sure felt similar, thanks to the Sacramento Ohana planning team that did everything from weekly and then daily updates leading up to the event, all the way to producing a printed program and offering an event pin! Wendy Cevola produced a beautiful tiki mug for the event, inspired The Lanai, a former tiki location in Sacramento. Cevola has produced mugs for the event since 2010, though this is her last year.
The Sacramento Ohana Tiki Crawl Committee members are: Jennifer Biddle, Kurt Biddle, Denise Hopkins, Mike McIntyre, Tracy Meier, Brittany Welch-Jackson, and Robyn Yednock-Haas. They along with the hosts and co-hosts for each location really put in hours of effort to deliver a wonderful event for the attendees. The event was free, with tips encouraged at each stop. And this really was a well-attended event. I personally spoke with people from Seattle, Portland, San Diego, and everywhere in between on the west coast. There was even an attendee from Ohio. And a shout-out to the sponsors from Tanduay Rum, Avua Cachaca, and Bounty Rum.
I spoke with Kurt Biddle, one of the event organizers and one of the crawl location hosts, about the event…
What’s it like to be part of the planning team for an event like this? How did you decide on some of the special features like the pin and program?
Kurt- SacMod is an organization that works to preserve and protect modern art, architecture and design here in the Sacramento region and they have a home tour every three years. This year’s tour had a booklet with a map and I was immediately inspired to do something similar (albeit smaller and not as beautiful). I love the internet, but without actual things (i.e. pins and booklets) things start to feel disposable or forgotten. We wanted to commemorate the crawl and give a little background on the hosts and the crawl, with a feature on Wendy Cevola who has made crawl mugs for 10 years now and this year was her last.
Your home tiki bar, Danger Island, was highly anticipated. How long did it take to put together to get it into shape for visitors?
Kurt- We’ve been collecting stuff and putting it in storage and have wanted my own tiki bar for years now. There were a couple of other artists and bar builders I had wanted to work with, but everyone is busy and had bigger and better opportunities. Someone suggested Keith Richardson right here in Sacramento. He and I met and I had some photographs of bars and elements I liked. He asked me where I got one of the photos and I think I said Pinterest or something and he said, “That’s MY bar!” I knew I had the right person. Keith is a set builder by trade and we really worked well together. I would come up with an idea and he would make it even better. I had real rough drawings and would change my mind constantly and Keith rolled with it and helped me realize a lot of my plans. I also had Josh Hunt (a long-time bartender at Jungle Bird and elsewhere) consult on the actual bar and make sure the space was very workable.
It took about 3 months to build. Jim and Brigitte Crawford helped us move my junk out of the garage, paint and fill in the old oil pits (it used to be a carport at one time that was enclosed).
Any specific motivation to have your place on the crawl? What do you enjoy most about hosting?
Kurt- We hosted last year with a portable bar that I had. Jennifer and I really had a good time and love to host parties. I think getting great people together is my favorite part.
The event seemed to run really well this year, which I’m sure is a testament to the history of the event and also the effort from the planners and hosts. Is there any advice you’d have for anyone looking to start a similar event in their area?
Kurt- Communication. Lots of it. We had several planning committee meetings and a couple of host/co-host meetings. We introduced the idea of a co-host, to assist the host. Many people wanted to be involved, but don’t have the space for a tiki bar or aren’t quite ready to host. This took a lot of stress off the hosts to have some help. We promoted it a lot on social media and tried to have interactive posts to get people involved and excited. We set up a text group for emergencies in case there was any situation that we needed to deal with. We created tasks and followed up with people on the tasks. The crawl to my knowledge never had sponsors, so that helped too.
Anything else that you think we should know that you haven’t mentioned already?
Kurt- I’m proud of all the Sacramento Ohana and the Crawl was a success. I hope other places that don’t currently have crawls or never had crawls will be inspired to do them. It’s a lot of fun seeing people’s home collections and getting to know people.
Thanks for the info and again thanks for a fab event!
The write up and all photos are by Kevin Crossman
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