San Francisco’s Tonga Room pops up in the headlines again

By the 1960s The Tonga Room was transformed into a full-fledge Tiki Bar complete with mid-pool bandstand, hurricane bar and a real tropical storm
By the 1960s The Tonga Room was transformed into a full-fledge Tiki Bar complete with mid-pool bandstand, hurricane bar and a real tropical storm

The San Francisco Chronicle has a post online explaining that the Nob Hill hotels, including the Fairmont where the historic Tonga Room is located, are in some deep financial troubles.

I’m posting this for a simple reason: because even though we Tiki lovers want the Tonga Room to remain where it is and live on, we’re not so foolish as to want it to stay in place at the expense of the hotel going out of business. Sure, we want the room to stay put. We want the owners to embrace what it stands for. But we sure as hell don’t want the Fairmont to close.

Here’s the article: http://www.sfgate.com(tonga-room).

Still no definitive word on the fate of the Tonga Room, or the Fairmont and its owners plans to renovate. In a perfect world, the owners, the city, the public and unions would find a compromise that would be acceptable to all. Maybe if they got into the spirit of the historic lounge, sat down together for a pow wow with a couple of Zombies and Mai Tais, they could work it out. Whatever happens, I sincerely hope the Tonga Room, the Fairmont, and all involved survive intact.

-Tiki Chris for Tiki Lounge Talk

2 Replies to “San Francisco’s Tonga Room pops up in the headlines again

  1. I really hope that the story ends well for the Tonga Room. I want to be able to visit it someday! I guess we are lucky that all this is happening now when Tiki is getting popular again. Ten years ago it probably would have had no chance at all.

    1. Ok, I just called the Tonga Room direct. I said I was coming over in June, and heard they might not be open. The lady on the phone…very nice by the way said, and I quote, “I think we’ll be open for a long time to come.” She was ready to take a reservation for late June. So that’s good news for the Tiki world! (Maybe not so good for the owners though. I hope they can come up with a plan to improve the hotel, make some money and keep the Tonga Room intact.)

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