I have been to many bars that call themselves tiki bars, and I have been to real tiki bars. A palpable difference exists between a bar serving tropical drinks with goofy stuff on the walls and a real, full-blown tiki bar. A real tiki bar is a special marriage of tropical escapism and kitschy nostalgia. It should feel like drinking fresh pineapple juice out of a coconut while watching a B-52s concert in the hull of a sunken ship—equal parts magical and weird.
In the most unassuming of locations—the old Gateway Lounge on Stardust Street—a new shining beacon of tiki nerdery has opened called Pele Utu, and it is home to some of the most thoughtful, honest tiki vibes Reno has known in decades.
Enter Pele Utu owners Dr. Shocker & Rosie Raddish, who use these monikers to honor the long legacy of earned tiki epithets generally bestowed upon you by your fellow enthusiasts. (The legendary tiki bartender and author Beachbum Berry was not born with that name.) Dr. Shocker started in the heart of tiki culture, Southern California’s Tiki Oasis, a festival for true tiki enthusiasts, in the late ’90s.
“Well, I’ve been a tiki collector since last century,” Dr. Shocker said. “I went down the tiki rat hole and discovered that most of these drinks taste good when you make them the right way. I just fell completely in love with tiki. I’ve got close to 500 mugs in my collection. We still have a ton of art at home, and just about everything on the walls here is out of our collection.”
His wife, Rosie Raddish, whose mother was a travel agent, grew up visiting tropical locations and the legendary Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. But her love of tiki grew when she met Dr. Shocker 15 years ago. He ran a vaudeville show, and Rosie wanted to tell a few jokes onstage.
“It turns out I liked him better than his show, and he introduced me to tiki cocktails because I only knew that my mother enjoyed resort mai tais and chi chis by a pool,” Rosie said. But soon, their shared love of tiki drinks led to them working together.
One busy day at the Ventura, Calif. tiki staple Ventiki, the couple stepped up and stepped into the world of bartending. The bar was understaffed that day, with just the owner and one cook, but a rush of customers came in.
As Rosie tells it, Dr. Shocker started bar backing, and she picked up a tray. “I look at the owner and said, ‘I keep my tips,’” she said. “I just started doing it, and I’ve loved working in tiki ever since.”
Tiki bars have a set of rules or a kind of code of conduct to help keep you in the artificial world of paradise. The first rule of tiki bars is: Respect the vibe. You will not hear the newest single from Charli XCX in Pele Utu. There are no windows to the outside world because Dr. Shocker and Rosie have gone to great lengths to take you to an exotic location of their creation.
“Everybody wants to act like we’re a regular bar,” Dr. Shocker explained. “We don’t have football, we don’t have basketball, we don’t have any sports on the TV, and we won’t, and we’re not going to. We don’t have cable. We have Gilligan’s Island.” When you step into Pele Utu, it has the cluttered charm of a curated collection of beloved trinkets and the dark escapism you need to feel transported to an island paradise.
“A tiki bar should have a proper dose of patina,” Rosie said. “You have to feel as if it’s been there, even if it’s brand new. It has to feel like it’s been there forever and that you’re discovering it.”
Rule number two is a hallmark of any excellent bar: Trust the bartender. Despite having an impressive cocktail menu of historically significant and delicious tiki drinks, Dr. Shocker and Rosie make all kinds of drinks.
“We are still a craft cocktail bar,” Dr. Shocker said. “We are rum forward, but we have a little bit of everything. We have whiskey, tequila and vodka drinks.” As a nondrinker, one of my favorite places to drink cocktails is at a bar. Most have a world of ingredients to make a fun, non-alcoholic drink, and Pele Utu is no exception.
“If you’re a non-alcoholic drinker, tell us,” Rosie said. “We didn’t put any NA drinks on the menu because we discovered, or at least I discovered, that if I did that, NA drinkers would only touch those. They’ll never explore anything else.”
Lastly, rule number three is: Don’t steal the glassware. This rule is fundamental because most people don’t know what it takes to pull off such a laborious and detailed concept like this.
“People will inevitably take stuff home, but it forces bars to stop having fun glassware,” Dr. Shocker said. “And what inevitably has caused some of the old tiki bars to go under is because they can’t afford it.”
Rosie and Dr. Shocker’s personal collection lines the walls, and their family painted the hanging mural behind the bar. Every detail, from the lavish tropical fruit garnishes to the fake lava rock on the walls, is made by this passionate couple.
“The tiki bar is never going to be finished, much like Disneyland. I’ll never be finished,” Rosie said.