Tiki Tom's

New (to me) tiki bar day.
Finally got out to Walnut Creek to check out Tiki Tom’s. After spending the week at The Kon-Tiki, Forbidden Island, and Trader Vic’s was I able to complete the “Alameda County Tiki Grand Slam”?
Hardly.
This place has lousy ratings amongst tikiphiles and for good reason. The decor is a mix of sports/dive and tiki, and embraces a working class vibe. It’s a little surprising considering it is sitting smack in the middle of Walnut Creek’s upscale shopping district. TVs over the Bar were showing Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (later, the Olympics) and there are game day Corona banners all over the place. There are quite a few tikis (none seem very authentic, though) with lots of Hawaiian elements. There is a nice stone feature at the entrance but mostly this feels like tourist-tiki circa 1999. The cartoony logo is consistent with this theme.
But, at 3:00 pm on Presidents Day I have to say the crowd was lively (mostly 20-30s crowd) and everyone seemed to be having fun. Music was reggae and the bartender was super friendly.
My Island-style Mai Tai was a mixed bag (remember, I don’t immediately disregard Island Mai Tais) but as you can see used low-ish end rums. At least the drinks are priced accordingly: the Mai Tai is listed at just $8 and my Mai Tai was just $4 (happy hour?).
Tiki Tom’s Mai Tai
Captain Morgan White
Orange Juice
Pineapple Juice
Grenadine
Float with Cruzan 151 and Myers’s
Garnish with orange, lemon, lime, cherry.

This is basically a low-end sports bar with some Aloha decor mixed in alongside promotional Budweiser sports posters. The specials mainly revolve around discounted aluminum bottles of beer and buffalo wings for game days. If you go on a very quiet day, you can sort of convince yourself it's a tiki bar, but you might have to explain to the bartender how to make a PainKiller, as I did.

More sports bar than Tiki bar