Last Friday was the last call at Cirals’ House of Tiki, and news of its closing brought out plenty of fans. “To me it was just a bar and a restaurant,” said owner Ted Cirals, “but I guess it turned out to be more than that.” He described the outpouring of gratitude as “amazing”–phone calls came from “all over the country.”
The Tiki became a neighborhood landmark. Like Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap and the Valois restaurant, the bar brought color and a sense of community to an area dominated by the University of Chicago’s gray Gothic architecture. Patrons were drawn to its Henri Rousseau-like fantasy of the tropics, with its hanging beads, red-tinted lighting, and bamboo fixtures. The ceiling was adorned with stuffed puffer fish, a wicker monkey, and a Budweiser lamp with revolving Clydesdales. The Tiki appealed to people of all races and classes, attracting folks from the neighborhood as well as the university.
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As part of the sale, the couple can’t name the buyer–they’re not even sure if the place will remain a tavern. Cirals expected the new incarnation will not keep the name, though that means the buyer, he said, “is losing thousands of dollars in advertising. The Tiki has been in every kind of newspaper imaginable.”
A few blocks away at the Cove, a sports bar with a wide-screen TV, a large table of graduate students in economics complained about being turned away from the Tiki and lamented the loss of their kitschy oasis. “It was an institution,” said Kelly Ragan, who came to the U. of C. from San Francisco. “Every now and then you need a little umbrella in your drink.”
