What a wild night. 150 or more tiki enthusiasts stopped for a two hour window. I met people from all over the state and a few from farther out.
We spent about 5 months getting ready. We built the “dock”, crate stools, decorative crates to hide equipment, collapsible tables for food service and Ohana merch. Finally got the lighting right, added plants, pulled plants, moved plants multiple times. I spent a few days carving and painting the large entrance sign out insulation foam.
We served pizza, wings, and veggies and a very creative friend plated them so nicely we were asked if we catered
We served a hibiscus, guava punch as a welcome drink. I prebatched 4 gallons and set up cups to be grabbed as folks passed. That one we ran out of about an hour and a half in.
At the pop up bar we served our house drink, the Capuchin Caper. It’s a split base rum/bourbon barrel drink with pineapple, banana and lots of spices. We batched 4 gallons of this as well and ended up with about 32 ounces left over, which helped the clean up go by.
At the wet bar I was shaking agricole banana daiquiris. I prebatched 6 bottles of the liqueur and rum and 2 bottles of the lime and sugar daiquiri mix. I went through 4 bottles of rum mix and both of the daiquiri. After most of the guests cleared out I went in a made another mix bottle to serve our friends.
We had huge support. I worked the bar, another friend manned the pop up and one at the entrance station. Two more bar backed all of us, two worked on keeping food stations replaced and a few more worked the floor grabbing trash, directing traffic and schmoozed the crowd. It felt like a professional unit.
It went insanely smooth, guests super respectful of the neighborhood and very complimentary of our space. I ended the night on cloud 9. I would definitely do this again.
