The Tonga Room in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel may not be the best tiki bar, to be honest, it’s not even in the top three of tiki bars in San Francisco, but it is maybe one of the most iconic. With a band playing on a platform floating in the middle of a pool of water (we’re talking big pool here) you can’t imagine anyone starting any sort of food service business today devoting that much square footage to a body of water.
The Tonga Room has a cool vibe though and it’s worth a visit in much the same way that if you like roller coasters you need to go to Disneyland even though the roller coasters there might be kind of lame. Having a drink in one of their signature mugs while listening to the band do R&B covers floating on a bamboo raft and having a “rain storm” spontaneously start, well what could be cooler than that?
Except now the signature mug is gone as The Tonga Room is now serving all of its Tiki-style drinks in glass containers rather than ceramic mugs. While theft is not cited as the reason we can’t help but think that it had something to do with it. I know from my experience owning a music venue that is a bummer every time someone drops one of our branded wine glasses on the floor and I know more than a couple of them have found new homes somewhere via the five-finger discount even though the glasses are indeed for sale.
But I digress, The change in the serving receptacle is one but a few poorly received changes and the venerable hotel bar. You can read a more in-depth article about that at THIS LINK.