Ode to the Tiki Mug!

Growing up in the '60s and '70s, I feel lucky to have experienced a cultural phenomonon which is so quickly disappearing in the current years. The tiki lounge or polynesian restaurant. I was born and raised in the Boston Massachusetts area. The polynesian lounge of the northeast usually was a chinese restaurant decked out in Polynesian or Tiki decor. The menu consisted of chinese style entrees including a sizzling steak platter or a Pu-Pu platter with flaming Hibachi, to heat your boneless spareribs or steak on a stick. Not until I was legal drinking age (18 yrs back then) was I able to enjoy my first Mai Tai, Zombie, Suffering Bastard, Headhunter or Scorpion bowl. Somewhere around 1980 I probably added my first Tiki Mug into my tiki mug collection. The Mai Kai Restaurant in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire served fantastic cocktails in souvenir mugs. However, i don't believe the owners considered them souvenir mugs. I still ahve that first mug in my collection - now 50 or so strong.!
I've started to paint Tiki Mug portratits to celebrate this vanishing restaurant tradition - below you'll see two of my most recent Tiki Mug Portraits


18" X 24" Acrylic on canvas


16" X 20" Acrylic on canvas