Would You Like a Paper Umbrella?
As I sat at a window table in the bar at Trader Vic’s in Emeryville, watching the sun set on the Bay, sipping a mai tai made from the original 1944 recipe developed by the restaurant’s founder, Vic “The Trader” Bergeron, I felt like I finally understood what I had been told: Tiki is about more than the drinks.
Absent essential decorative elements — including special mugs and bowls, wood carvings, bamboo, tapa cloth, nautical elements like puffer fish and glass buoys and, of course, tiki carvings — a tiki bar would be just, well, a bar.
