Sunday Evening Video: Tiki Terrace (With Bonus Photos)

Your PopCulteer is back home after a fun and adventure-filled trip to Chicago, and one of our adventures was a trip to Tiki Terrace, a legendary Tiki Restaurant and Show Bar tucked away in the corner of an otherwise unimposing strip mall located in Des Plaines, Il, on the outskirts of the Windy City.

The video above gives you a ibt more than four minutes of the atmosphere, with a little bit of Mrs. PopCulteer singing and doing the hula thrown in for good measure. We had a blast at Tiki Terrace. It was everything we’d been told it was, and more. We went on “Hang Loose Wednesday,” when they offer a stripped-down version of their big weekend floor show, but it was still loads of fun. I have to confess that my horrible habit of forgetting names has struck again, and I can’t remember the name of our host, but he was a master showman and kept the crowd happy and entertained while singing, leading the crowd in song, dancing and introducing his niece, who performed several Polynesian dances of different styles.

That first phot you see sort of to the right is Mel with the performers. Mel not only got up with a group of other women and did the hula, but she also did the Haka, which is traditionally a male dance. I demurred, since I really hate to be onstage, but Mel more than made up for it, and that was after she wowed the crowd by lending her voice to a couple of songs (you’ll see one in the above video.

Tiki Terrace is a really fun place, and any fan of Tiki culture has to make a pilgrimmage to this oasis of cool, hidden away in the morass of urban sprawl around Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. You can visit their website and follow them on Facebook, and if you get a chance to visit the place, tell them PopCult sent you.

We have a load of cool photos, some of which did not make it into the video, so here they are if you want more to stare at…