Trad'r Sam opened on Geary Boulevard in 1937, the same year as the Golden Gate Bridge, which makes it the oldest tiki bar in San Francisco, and eight years later the Fairmont turned its indoor swimming pool into the Tonga Room. The seven tiki bars in this guide range from that cash-only dive in the Outer Richmond to Smuggler's Cove, a three-level bar in Hayes Valley with more than 1,300 rums and a 2026 James Beard nomination. Along the way there's a jet fuselage in the Castro, eight thatched huts in the Tenderloin and a volcano in the Financial District that erupts fog.
1. Smuggler's Cove
Smuggler's Cove is at 650 Gough Street in Hayes Valley, and there's a doorman working the line seven nights a week. Martin Cate opened the bar in December 2009 and owns it with his wife Rebecca. Inside are three dark levels joined by stairs and catwalks, with a waterfall, a full-size anchor, glass fishing floats, a ship's figurehead and a lower bar signed "BOATHOUSE", and no more than 49 people are let in at a time. The rum list runs past 1,300 rums, and the Rumbustion Society, the bar's tasting club, gives out a red fez after 80 of them. The Cates' book, Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki, won a James Beard Award in 2017, and the bar was a James Beard nominee for Outstanding Bar in 2026.
The Mai Tai ($17) is rum, fresh lime, house-made orgeat, orange curaçao, demerara sugar. The Zombie ($21) is rums, fresh lime, fresh grapefruit, fresh brains, island spices, herbsaint, and the menu marks it "Very Strong" (it doesn't explain the brains). There's no food and there are no reservations, so get in line near the 5pm opening and bring your whole group, because the line is first come, first served and late friends don't cut in. Smuggler's Cove is open daily from 5pm to 1:15am, and nobody under 21 is admitted, babies included.
2. Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar
The Tonga Room is on the Terrace level of the Fairmont on Nob Hill, in what was the hotel's 75-foot indoor swimming pool from 1929 until 1945, when MGM set director Mel Melvin converted it into a bar. The pool is now the lagoon, and from 7pm a band called The Island Groove plays on a thatched barge on the water. About every half hour an indoor storm sends rain, thunder and lightning down over the water. The dance floor is built from the remains of the S.S. Forester, a lumber schooner that sailed between San Francisco and the South Sea Islands.
Cocktails run $22 to $25, and the Mai Tai 1944 ($25) is Bacardi Superior Rum, Bacardí 8 Rum, Tonga Curaçao, house-blended orgeat, and lime. From 7pm there's a $20 cover for every seated guest, waived for hotel guests. The Tonga Room is open Wednesday and Thursday 5 to 10pm and Friday and Saturday 5 to 11pm, and it's all ages until 10pm. Tables can be booked on Tablz or OpenTable, and you should ask for one on the lagoon's edge. Private buyouts close it fairly often, so check @tongaroom on Instagram first. The rest is in our Tonga Room review.
3. Zombie Village
Zombie Village is at 441 Jones Street near O'Farrell, on the Tenderloin side of Union Square, and it's run by Future Bars, the group behind Bourbon & Branch and Pagan Idol. The name comes from Frank "Skipper" Kent's Zombie Village, which opened in Oakland in 1942 across the street from the original Trader Vic's and burned down in a three-alarm fire in 1967. Some of the drink names come from Skipper Kent's old menu. The custom work is by tiki artists including Bamboo Ben Bassham, Crazy Al Evans and Ivan Mora, and the two floors have a starry ceiling, a giant moai on the palapa bar, a candlelit cave and eight thatched A-frame huts along one wall, each one honoring a historic tiki bar.
Zombie Village takes reservations for the huts on OpenTable, and on busy nights like Halloween they book up. The menu has 17 cocktails, including the Catamaran (pisco, Jamaican rum and apricot) and Over the Garden Wall (rum, elderflower, coconut and absinthe), plus Doc's Grog, a Mai Tai, Three Dots & a Dash and scorpion bowls. Prices aren't posted online. Zombie Village is open Wednesday 5pm to midnight, Thursday to 12:30am and Friday and Saturday to 2am, with vinyl DJs on Thursdays.
4. Last Rites
Last Rites is on 14th Street between Church and Belcher at the edge of the Castro, and it's themed as a plane crash in the jungle. The back bar is built into a real passenger-jet fuselage that was hauled in four pieces from an airplane graveyard in Southern California, with the plane's ribs arching overhead and vintage American Airlines seats for barstools. Justin Lew and Ian Scalzo opened Last Rites in July 2018 in the old Residence bar, and they spent $20,000 on fake foliage (the fire-retardant kind). There's also a floor-to-ceiling skull in the back, parachute fabric across the ceiling and the occasional clap of thunder.
Every house cocktail is $16. The Last Rites, the house grog, is High Ester & Overproof Rum, Secret amaro & spices, citrus, salted molasses, smoldering cinnamon stick. The Zombie Killer is Haitian and St. Lucian rum, coconut, pineapple, citrus, cinnamon, falernum, and absinthe. Any of them can be made non-alcoholic, and a 5% surcharge goes on the check for employee benefits. There are no table reservations, so on weekends expect to wait for one of the five booths up front. Last Rites is open Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday 5 to 11pm, Thursday 5pm to 1am and Friday and Saturday 6pm to 2am, and closed Monday.
5. Pagan Idol
Pagan Idol is at 375 Bush Street in the Financial District, in the space that used to be Tiki Bob's, and it has two rooms. The front room is built as the belly of a wooden ship, Captain Cook's stateroom, with porthole windows that show fish swimming past, a ship's wheel and a peacock stained-glass window. A skull-studded path leads to the back room, an island under a starry sky with a waterfall, an outrigger canoe and a volcano that erupts and sends fog across the ceiling. Sit back there.
Pagan Idol opened in February 2016 and will debut a new menu at its 10-year party on November 11, 2026, so the drinks below may change. The house Zombie riff has been the Daywalker, three rums (Puerto Rican, Jamaican, overproof), orange, pineapple, lemon, grenadine, fassionola, bitters and absinthe. The Rum Monkey is a bowl for the table of rums, banana, pineapple, citrus, macadamia nut, cream and egg, and the classics can be ordered off-menu. Surf and exotica bands play weekly, the after-work crowd fills Pagan Idol early Wednesday to Friday, and reservations are on Yelp. It's open Monday 5:30 to 11pm, Tuesday and Wednesday 4:30pm to midnight and Thursday to Saturday 4:30pm to 2am, and closed Sunday.
6. Trad'r Sam
Trad'r Sam has been at Geary Boulevard and 26th Avenue in the Outer Richmond since 1937, eight years ahead of the Tonga Room. It's a neighborhood dive with a horseshoe bar, sports on the TVs and a jukebox that doesn't play island music. Siblings John Munguia and Dorothy Riedel reopened it in November 2023 after a refresh that brought a new bar top, flooring, lighting and blenders. The house specialty is the Scorpion bowl, shared with long straws, and the menu also has the Banana Cow (blended rum and brandy), a Zombie and a $12 frozen Piña Colada. When a blender drink comes out with extra, the bartenders pour it into a sidecar cup they call a "forehead kiss."
Bring cash, because Trad'r Sam doesn't take cards, and there's no website. It's open daily from about 2pm to 2am, though the hours have wandered over the years. It's 3 to 4 miles west of everything else on this list, so take the 38 or 38R Geary bus to 25th Avenue. Most cocktails were $9 when it reopened in 2023.
7. Bamboo Hut
Bamboo Hut is at 479 Broadway in North Beach. It started in 1997 as part of the HiBall Lounge and has been on its own since 2000, and in 2018 a pipe burst and the floor collapsed, which kept it closed until 2019. The walls are covered in bamboo, a canoe hangs over the thatch-roofed bar, and there's a 7-foot tiki head from the 1940s. Bamboo Hut is as much a party bar as a tiki bar, with DJs later in the night and groups taking over the Jungle Room.
All cocktails are $15 except the Zombie and the Volcano Bowl. The Zombie ($18) is Appleton Estate rum, Planteray dark & 151 rums, apricot brandy, herbsaint, house made grenadine, pineapple, lime, honey, angostura bitters. The Bamboo Hut Volcano Bowl ($45) "serves 4 (or 1 if you roll like that)" according to the menu, and comes with a 151 float on a piña colada or strawberry base. The Pretty Fly Mai Tai is Planteray 5yr rum, dry curacao, Zaya Gran Reserva rum, lime, house made orgeat, mint. Bamboo Hut opens at 5pm Wednesday to Saturday.
San Francisco Tiki Bar FAQ
What is the oldest tiki bar in San Francisco? Trad'r Sam on Geary Boulevard, open since 1937. The Tonga Room at the Fairmont followed in 1945.
Do San Francisco tiki bars take reservations? Smuggler's Cove doesn't, Last Rites doesn't for tables, and Trad'r Sam is walk-in. Zombie Village books its tiki huts on OpenTable, Pagan Idol takes reservations on Yelp, and the Tonga Room books tables on Tablz and OpenTable. Last Rites and Bamboo Hut take bookings for groups.
Is there a cover charge at the Tonga Room, and can kids go? The cover is $20 a person once the band starts at 7pm, waived for Fairmont hotel guests. The Tonga Room is all ages until 10pm and 21 and over after that. The other bars here are 21 and over, and Smuggler's Cove checks ID for everyone.
Which San Francisco tiki bars can you walk between? The Tonga Room, Pagan Idol and Zombie Village are all within about half a mile of each other as the crow flies, though the walk from Pagan Idol up to the Fairmont is steep, and Bamboo Hut is about half a mile from the Tonga Room. Smuggler's Cove is under a mile from both Zombie Village and Last Rites. Trad'r Sam is 3 to 4 miles west, on the 38 Geary bus.
For tiki outside California, see our reviews of Skull & Crown Trading Co. in Honolulu and The Golden Tiki in Las Vegas.
Photos: Cmglee / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), Smuggler's Cove, BanjoZebra / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0), Fairmont San Francisco, Zombie Village, Last Rites, Pagan Idol, Pagan Idol, denverkid / Flickr (CC BY 2.0), The Bamboo Hut
