Josh and Susan recently moved to Victoria BC from San Francisco. While living in the Bay Area, they had many tiki bars to choose from, they could go to a different tiki bar every day of the week and still have more left over! Josh is from Canada and he wanted to move back, so he brought his wife Susan with him and bought a home in beautiful Victoria BC.
Their house is a “Character Home” which means it was built before 1930 that displays unique architectural features from its historical period. These homes are defined by their distinctive elements, including ornate cornices, bay windows, verandahs, and special features like leadlight windows or tiled roofs. Character houses are typically built from weatherboard or brick, offering spacious layouts with four or more bedrooms.
They knew they wanted to build a tiki bar, they just needed to pick a room in their very large house. Josh and Susan settled on a room that used to be a study. Great choice because it gives their tiki bar “The Sunset Fogcutter” a world adventurer/explorer feel. When you step inside The Sunset Fogcutter, you feel like you’re going back in time. Here is Josh and Susan’s story…
What is the tiki scene like where you live?
We very recently moved from San Francisco, one of the hotbeds of tiki activity, to the city of Victoria, on Vancouver Island off the west coast of Canada. While there aren’t tiki bars around every corner as it sometimes seems in the Bay Area, we were quickly introduced to many local tiki-philes who invited us into their homes and home bars, and we discovered a thriving vintage decor and fashion scene. This was wonderful for making connections in our new city, and we quickly had a full social calendar, inviting people over to our home bar and then visiting the getaways of our new friends. Thank you Stephen, Jim, and Mary-Ellen, and everyone else we’ve met in the local groups.
As far as commercial tiki bars, Victoria is home to the Tora Tiki “Tropical Liquor Lounge”, a popular hang-out for members of the scene, and nearby is Citrus and Cane, a retro-themed bar that is definitely tiki-adjacent with mid-century tropical decor and drink menu. Decorating a home bar is pretty easy – there seems to be an endless supply of rattan on the secondary market – not just furniture either! With diligent thrifting, you can find some real gems, especially if you are a Witco fan.
What brought you into the tiki lifestyle and how long has it been part of your life?
We first met “in real life” at Disneyland, so of course the Enchanted Tiki Room plays a role, but it was a combination of things. In 2003, we picked up a copy of Sven’s Book of Tiki and Pottery Barn’s Tiki Rhythms CD on a whim, and it snowballed from there. We backed an early Horror in Clay Kickstarter for a Cthulhu mug and slowly started collecting more and more. Josh joined Tiki Central in 2006 after moving to San Francisco and we started exploring tiki history in our neighborhood, like the remnants of Skipper Kent’s. At the ETR’s 50th anniversary in 2013 we picked up a Pele statue by Kevin and Jody, but she needed friends so Josh started making his own gods and drummers out of papier mache. Then, at a garage sale, a friend picked up two boxes of mugs for us that happened to be full of rarities, including some of Bosko’s earliest, so at that point things got more serious! The dining room in the flat we were renting started to become a tiki hide-away, with faux bird-of-paradise flowers in the corners and mugs filling the shelves.
Can you give a little history of how it all came together?
In 2015, we found ourselves house hunting. One we really liked had an out-building in the backyard; we half-joked it could be a tiki bar. We didn’t get that place – San Francisco real-estate is a wild ride – but when we did purchase a house nearby the seed had been planted. In 2017, we put in an out-building, just a tiny 12’x8′ “studio shed”, and the serious decorating started.
Lots of hunting Craigslist for decor items, like a bar, chairs, shelves. We loved Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar in Anaheim, and that was an inspiration: eclectic escapism and adventure-inspired decor with stories attached, rather than any strict Polynesian theming, although we love Marquesan and Papua New Guinea pieces. We took inspiration from other bars as well. Smuggler’s Cove has cubbies with tributes to past tiki bars like Tiki Bob’s, featuring mugs and other ephemera. Our bar has a small shrine to the Caribbean Zone, a short lived and unfortunately poorly documented tiki-adjacent bar in SF that Josh visited in the 1990s. It was housed in a steel shack under a freeway, and you could sit in the fuselage of a crashed airplane which featured prominently on the “merch”. (Imagine an early version of Last Rites!)
Our Victoria bar is mostly decorated items moved wholesale from our San Francisco bar, but it is starting to develop its own personality as we discover new treasures and work on new crafts – Susan’s specialty at the moment is knotwork on antique fishing floats.
Any story behind the name of your bar?
Our home was located in San Francisco’s notoriously foggy Sunset District, so the Sunset Fogcutter was an obvious name, with a play on the location, escaping the weather, and of course the historic drink. It let us sneak “SF” into the initials as well.
The reborn bar in Victoria keeps the name; we haven’t settled on whether or not it needs a suffix yet. Ideas include “The Sunset Fogcutter – In Exile”, “The Sunset Fogcutter – Goes North”, “The Sunset Fogcutter – Under New Management” ? Probably not that last one…
The bar is now located inside the house, in a former study with high ceilings and dark wood paneling. It takes on even more of an “adventurer’s lounge” feeling, and has been great for hosting guests. It was one of the first rooms we decorated in the new house, to get boxes unpacked and out of the way, so it is still a work in progress. We used an existing light fixture as a temporary place to hang floats, puffer fish, and other lights, and it has become a center-piece for the room.
How far have you driven to buy something tiki that you saw online?
Our first peacock chair was a pick-up from Sacramento, a 3-hour round trip from SF. Our second peacock chair was a pick-up in our own neighborhood from a seller who was moving. Our third peacock chair was found abandoned by the side of the road on the way to our neighborhood dog park.
We also drove up to Sacramento for a Tiki Central Art Swap hand-off with Wendy Cevola, and had a lovely time chatting and getting a tour of Dan’s jungle room.
What is your favorite Tiki drink? What do you think makes the perfect cocktail?
Susan has been a classic Mai Tai fan since reading The Great Mai Tai Hunt*, an article by long-time horror host Joe Bob Briggs, currently featured on AMC’s The Last Drive-in. She also enjoys a Marlin or a Hurricane when gardening. For Susan, the perfect cocktail is one that really spotlights one or two featured ingredients while balancing tart and sweet.
Josh won’t commit to a single favorite but since discovering a local supplier of fassionola syrup the Ace Pilot is a common concoction at the bar, with Three Dots and a Dash, Ancient Mariner and Colonial Grog making frequent appearances too. We usually start guests off with a Blackbeard’s Ghost or a Mara-Amu. For all of those drinks there is nothing hiding, just a sequence of “oh wow, what is that flavor?”
* link c/o The Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20050306100650/http://www.joebobbriggs.com/maxgolf/mg200010.html
What is your favorite Tiki bar? Not including your own!
Picking just one is so hard! Of the many tiki bars in San Francisco that we’d go to again and again, each one has its own appeal. Since we lived in North Beach for many years our kids grew up going to the iconic Tonga Room, although with its increasing popularity, it has lost the all-you-can-eat buffet and drink quality wildly fluctuates. Smuggler’s Cove is an intensely and classically themed experience with amazing cocktails, but the intimate space can be overly crowded. Trader Vic’s in Emeryville has the most amazing location and views, and is always a treat to visit for a special meal with drinks. And we were regulars for brunch at Hula Hoops. But Zombie Village is the most unique location and our particular favorite to re-visit, with both private huts and amazing large spaces that come alive with special effects, and the Caribbean twist on classic cocktails.
Outside of great drinks, what do you think are essential elements in creating the perfect Tiki environment?
Whatever contributes to a feeling of being transported to another place, another time, another world. When guests open the doors, step inside and say “I can’t believe this is here”, we know we’ve done a good job. It should engage all of your senses; tropical aromas, tasty drinks, ethereal music, a feast for the eyes, and a space you want to get up and explore with your hands. Many different scales: big things that catch your eye, but plenty of smaller elements to discover over time. Indirect lighting, so nothing is too dark but there is still a sense of mystery. Places for guests to sit to take it all in, and welcoming hosts. Things that inspire conversation, and a bit of magic: did that flower or bird really move, or was it a trick of the light? And plenty of Easter eggs: what does that note say? Is that the thing from that movie? Music that blends exotica and surf, but with a twist – tiki covers of pop songs are a particular treat.
What does the future hold for you and your home tiki bar?
The bar needs to be packed up temporarily this spring while some adjacent rooms get some work done, which will be a great time to go back and tackle adding tropical matting high on the walls as a backdrop for more decor items. We’ll also be hanging a bamboo grid that will enable more lights, including spots to illuminate some of the currently dark corners, and getting our Disneyland-themed “barker bird” a proper perch and programming. Josh had fun making an OA-inspired rattan globe lamp, and wants to try making more. We also need some new “merch” – our coasters still say “San Francisco” so they need an update!
Anything else you would like to add?
Right before we left San Francisco, Josh did another web search for “Caribbean Zone” stuff and discovered that a local antique dealer had found the giant metal “can” for the neon sign that hung off a building on Howard street directing people down the alley.
The dealer had restored the sign with new neon tubes and put it up for sale. Of course, we had to purchase it. It’s far too big for the tiki bar, but is a prominent display piece in our living room here in Victoria. We’re glad to be caretakers for this obscure piece of history.
