The Fairmont San Francisco built a 75-foot indoor swimming pool on its Terrace level in 1929, and in 1945 it hired MGM set director Mel Melvin to turn the room around it into a bar. The pool is still there, now called the lagoon, with a band playing from a thatched barge on the water and an indoor rainstorm, thunder included, rolling over it about every half hour. That is the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, a tiki cocktail bar and restaurant on Nob Hill, below the lobby of the Fairmont.
The Fairmont is at Mason and California, and the Tonga Room is on the T level. Take the elevator down from the lobby and follow a long hallway to a lava-rock doorway with "TONGA" lit up above it and a gold tiki head next to the host stand.
Before it was the Tonga Room it was the Fairmont Plunge, where Olympic swimmers trained and Helen Hayes and Ronald Reagan came to swim. Melvin first dressed it as the S.S. Tonga, a cruise ship bound for the Tongan Islands, with lifeboats, air vents and life preservers on the walls. The masts and rigging came from the S.S. Forester, a lumber schooner that sailed between San Francisco and the South Sea Islands, and the dance floor is built from what was left of her. The storms were added in the 1950s, and by the late 1960s the room was the full tiki version you see today. In 2009 the hotel's owners planned to close it for a condo tower, the Planning Commission deadlocked 3-3, and in 2011 the hotel went up for sale instead. The Fairmont's own events brochure quotes Anthony Bourdain calling the Tonga Room "the greatest place in the history of the world" (a big claim for a room that used to be a swimming pool).
A Rainstorm on Nob Hill
A bamboo rail runs around the lagoon, with thatched huts on the far side, string lights overhead and a carved canoe hanging over the dining room. When the storm comes, rain falls across the water, the lights flash and the thunder rolls. That band is The Island Groove, which starts at 7pm with top-40 from the '60s, '70s and '80s plus newer songs, and conga lines on the old Forester deck are common.
The Hurricane Bar side has a granite-topped bar and red leather banquettes, and the whole room holds up to 450 people for a buyout. It gets loud once the band starts. Ask for a table at the lagoon's edge, because the tables near the entrance and out in the wings lose the view of the barge. When the bar tables are all booked, the leftover option is standing at the rail.
Mai Tais, Zombies and the Tonga Room Menu
Cocktails run $22 to $25, and they're strong. The Mai Tai 1944 ($25) is Bacardi Superior Rum, Bacardí 8 Rum, Tonga Curaçao, house-blended orgeat, and lime, shaken and finished with a 151 Cherry and mint. The Zombie 1934 ($25) is Bacardí 8 and Gold Puerto Rican Rums, Appleton Estate Jamaican Rum, Don Q 151 Rum, Cruzan St. Croix Blackstrap Rum, Velvet Falernum, "Don's Mix", lime, pineapple and grenadine, finished with an Angostura absinthe mist. For those counting, that's five rums, and the menu offers a dark rum float for $5 more.
The Hand Shaken Colada ($25) is Planteray Pineapple Rum, Bacardí Superior Rum, Giffard Pineapple, cream of coconut, fresh lime, pineapple and orange juices, topped with a Cruzan Black Strap Rum Float and a 151 Cherry, and for another $30 it comes in a "Golden God" tiki glass you take home. You should also order the Tropical Itch 1957 ($23), Don Q 151 Rum, Ron Zacapa Rum, Bulleit Bourbon, passion fruit, mango and lime juices and a dash of Angostura bitters, which the menu credits to Harry Yee at the Hawaiian Gardens Resort in Waikiki. The $35 Tonga Tiki Flight is a Mai Tai, a Hand Shaken Colada and a Painkiller Especial, the house Painkiller made with Casamigos Blanco Tequila instead of rum. The spirits list has about 60 rums, most poured at $15 to $28.
The food is Asian-fusion and sized for sharing, and people who come back are more mixed on it than on the drinks. The Tonga Pupu Platter ($69) is Coconut Calamari, Luau Pork Belly Bites, Korean Short Ribs, Edamame, Plantain Chips & Dip. Kids are allowed until 10pm, and the zero-proof list includes a $21 Lava Flow and the $16 Tiki Face, a layered soda for children.
Tonga Room Hours, Cover Charge and Reservations
The Tonga Room is open Wednesday and Thursday from 5pm to 10pm and Friday and Saturday from 5pm to 11pm, and it's closed Sunday through Tuesday. It's all ages until 10pm and 21 and over after that. Once the band starts at 7pm there's a $20 cover for every seated guest "regardless of arrival time," so getting there at 6:30 doesn't avoid it, and the cover is the most common complaint about the place. Food checks carry an automatic 15% gratuity, or 18% for parties of six or more, and the dress code is casual.
Book a table on Tablz or OpenTable. Some seating is first-come, first-served, and groups of 10 to 40 have to order the $120-a-head Forester Large Party Menu. Private buyouts close the room or cut the night short fairly often, so check @tongaroom on Instagram before you go. The Tonga Room is one of seven in our guide to San Francisco tiki bars, and for more tiki, see our reviews of Skull & Crown Trading Co. in Honolulu and The Golden Tiki in Las Vegas.
The cover is waived for registered Fairmont guests, and the hotel sells a "Tonga ALL Night" package with a room and a guaranteed reservation (a very expensive way to save $20).
Photos: Cmglee / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), Cmglee / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), Fairmont San Francisco
