Home Tiki Bar Spotlight #131 Gecko’s Grotto – La Mesa CA

Traveling to Hawaii is not cheap, especially if you have three kids!

So, what do you do? Well, Steve and Amy brought Hawaii to them and built a tiki bar in their home. After their kids moved out, they converted one of the empty rooms into Gecko’s Grotto. With the help of Buzzy, they built a home tiki that’s truly stunning at night or even during the day! Here is how the Gecko’s Grotto came to be…

What is the tiki scene like where you live?

Steve- The tiki scene in San Diego is AMAZING!!!!!!  When we first started, there was a large, but manageable group of like-minded people who met at the Bali Hai every month.  Now, there’s soooo many people who are into the scene that it’s impossible to know everyone.  Some people don’t like that it has exploded that much, but I do.  You can never meet too many cool people.  There’s lots of events to choose from (from vending events, holiday events, music, Tiki Oasis, monthly meetups at bars, private rum clubs, artist events at their houses, etc…)  There’s also a lot of incredible home tiki bars too.  Everyone is super nice and helpful.  I love False Idol, the Bali Hai is a classic, the Grass Skirt can be good (sometimes they have thumping college music for the younger, non-tiki crowd), and other tropical bars.

What brought you into the tiki lifestyle and how long has it been part of your life?

Steve- I’ve always enjoyed rum.  I used to live in Miami, Florida.  My grandmother was a travel agent, and she took me all over the Caribbean.  I was too young to drink alcohol back then, but I loved the culture and the exotic lifestyle back in the day.  I realize it’s not tiki (except for the rum), but when I first explored the islands, there wasn’t internet, James Bond travelled there a lot, and it was full of mystery.  Some of the islands were green and mountainous, so it looked like Hawaii.  Fast forward many years (about 15 years ago), Amy and I (with 3 kids) didn’t think we would be able to afford to go to Hawaii much, so we wanted to turn our back yard into a tropical “Hawaiian” escape for the family.  We went to the Bali Hai for inspiration, got a few drinks in their tiki mugs and the rest is history.

Can you give a little history of how it all came together?

Steve- We had an evolution of tiki bars at each of our houses.  At first, Amy was apprehensive to have a true bar at home, since she’s a professional bartender and didn’t want to mix work with home life, but she realized she truly loves entertaining and when we did create a bar, she didn’t have to move around to mingle.  People would come to her, since she was a constant behind the bar.  We first got into tiki when we lived in the Kensington neighborhood.  We bought a lot of tropical and tropical looking plants and planted them all over the back yard.  We had a small, but really cool outside bar, next to the pool.  When they raised our rent to the point of it being cheaper to own a house than to rent, we bought a house in the College Area.  We had tiki mugs in every part of the house and another outside tiki bar.  Well, it wasn’t as much of a bar as a place to hang out.  We made drinks inside and brought them out.  The back yard had tropical plants everywhere as well as a pool.  It was a really nice place to relax.  Then the neighbors on each side of us sold their houses to developers and they built multi-story mini dorms on each side of us, so we sold the house and moved to La Mesa.  Now, our kids are out of the house, and we wanted to turn a bedroom into a full-time tiki bar.  We wrote down and drew up some plans for the tiki bar and asked Buzzy to help us realize our vision by building custom pieces and he suggested a few things that made our vision even better than what we had imagined.  In the beginning, I also collected as many tiki mugs as I could.  Back then, it wasn’t too unrealistic to try to collect every tiki mug.  Then, when there were too many options, I narrowed my focus to just mugs from bars that we went to, mugs from favorite bars, as well as favorite artists (Gecko, Tiki Rob, Beachbumz, Notch, D. Cerva, etc…).  All of a sudden, I realized I had over 1000 mugs.  Too many to display.  Even the ones that were on display, they were too close together and you couldn’t truly enjoy them as it is overwhelming.  I’ve been slowly selling off most of my collection.  My goal is to just have enough mugs to display in our tiki bar as well as have a lot to use when we have people over.  I also got into some artists before they became big, so I have a few original paintings from people like Doug Horne, Ken Ruzic, Big Toe, and the like.

Any story behind the name of your bar?

Steve- Since, I lived in South Florida and travelled all over the Caribbean, my favorite animal is a gecko.  Every time we travel anywhere tropical, I’m always on the lookout for them and I take photos of them.  Amy’s always wanted a grotto as well (mainly as part of a pool, but we’ll have to do with just the name, although, just outside of the tiki bar is a grotto-like area with lots of plants and a lava rock fountain (birds have taken up residence in a couple of the plants too).

How far have you driven to buy something tiki that you saw online?

Steve- Not too far.  We’ve scored some Witco bars off of the local Craigslist as well as word of mouth from friends.  We have travelled to tiki events to buy things at their sales, when they had them at Don the Beachcomber in Huntington Beach.  We planned (and paid for) a trip just to go to the Mai Kai for a few days, but Covid happened, and everything was cancelled for us.  We have yet to go there.

What is your favorite Tiki drink? What do you think makes the perfect cocktail? What is your favorite Tiki bar?

Steve- That’s a tough question.  It all depends on who is making it as well as what the ingredients are.  I love a good Mai Tai, Panther’s Fang, Ray’s Mistake (from Tiki Ti), Demerara Dry Float, Daiquiris, Steve’s Rum Barrel, Rum Manhattan, Negroni, a guilty pleasure is a Lava Flow while on vacation.  The favorite list goes on and on.  I do love straight rum as well.  When I sip on a rum, I think of the island it was made on.  I think of the terroir, air, beaches, trees, and locals.  It’s like I’m on vacation with every sip.  My favorite local tiki bar is False Idol.  Another favorite, but further away is Tiki Ti.  There are so many REALLY good home bars in San Diego, but my two favorites are the Lava Flow Inn and the Headhunter.  There are other super cool ones as well.

Outside of great drinks, what do you think are essential elements in creating the perfect Tiki environment?

Steve- Having fun is the most important element for the perfect Tiki environment.  Some people are too into being nitpicky and what’s the fun in that.  Personally, I do like a darker environment (I don’t mind seeing the daylight, but I don’t like it being too bright).  I like hanging things that we brought back from our travels (like a Trader).  I like several large tikis (in which we need more of).  I also love tiki lamps, hanging from the ceiling (we also need more of these too).  I love anything vintage (especially tikis, paintings, lamps, & old rum bottles).  Nautical items are also fun.  The most interesting thing to me are layers and layers of eye candy.  I like going to bars over and over and seeing things that I never noticed before.  But, again, having fun with friends is the most important.

What does the future hold for you and your home tiki bar?

Steve- We need some comfortable furniture in our bar, so we can have more people relaxing in it, instead of standing around.  We also need more hanging tiki lamps and large tikis too.  I would love to travel to get more things to hang on the walls as well.  We have a large sliding glass door that leads to the pool in the backyard.  We would like to get more plants to block the daylight from coming into the room during the day (& to have more greenery to see while looking outside).  We definitely need more layers of eye candy.