I was wandering around the Internet and came across this local Augusta message board with a post about the closing of Hale Tiki.Â
After the middle of the second page it gets more into what needs to be done to develop their downtown. The talk about Hale Tiki was interesting though. It helps shed light on why the place didn’t work well there.
Here are a few quotes:
“Yeah! What ever…..good rid! People been saying drinks were a complete rip off! ”
A nice sentiment. Good rid? Typical rock throwing by neanderthals.
“Even Ray Charles could have seen that one coming.”
Another rock thrower. “Hey, there’s a new place that’s different. I’m confused. Let’s throw rocks at it!”
“2. For Augusta, the drink prices were simply too high. In fact they were high for bars in Atlanta. Fat Tuesday(which had similar drinks) was very popular for a period of time, but mainly just on weekends..ppl were just not in the mood for the high octane fruity concoctions during afterwork happy hours.”
This is likely a problem of communication. Yes, the drink prices were high for the menu drinks. But, I am sure a high ball or beer was in line with any other place there. Hale Tiki needed to let people know that what was on the menu was not just fruity concoctions, nor was that all there was to the place.
“Think it had somethin to do with nonstop bums bummin and real bad elements loitering? Tried to pull into that row with a babe the other night and she almost screamed in fright so i had to cruise on. Bummer!”
A problem in lots of places. The urban dweller hardly notices it and the elitist suburbanites are frightened. They tend to be frightened by anything older than 2 years ago and that can’t be recognized from the mall. “Bummer” is a nice pun though!
“I had heard from a few ppl who had been there that the crowd was mostly gay men; veryflambouyant gay men.Not that there is anything wrong with that; they just felt they in the wrong bar. I have a couple of gay male friends and they took us to a famous gay bar in Atlanta that had a drag show. It was very entertaining, I must say.”
Maybe what we need is a drag show hula at Hale Tiki! If it had been known, it might have been much more successful as a gay bar, but, unfortuantely, the owner was in the dark about this rumor.
Clearly, Hale Tiki was a bit too high ended in its ideas than Augusta was ready for. New and different, at least, that which isn’t in the mold of a dance club, just can’t be tolerated by a smaller city. You can expect that there will always be those who don’t get the tiki bar. Some fall in love, some laugh and mock and some just don’t even notice. In the right city, it will thrive. In the wrong city, the apes will crowd around and throw rocks.
i count myself lucky that i got to experience this tiki shrine before it was too late. augusta is a great town, small, but with alot to offer (at least to a tourista such as myself)
I liked it too, but probably not for reasons that are good for Augusta. I loved the old shops downtown and the architecture. I loved the funky parking and wide sidewalks. And I really loved the classic old strip clubs! Those marquees are dynomite! For the locals, that stuff is old and nasty. Your typical person just sees awful blight down there. They can’t appreciate the classics.
I’m real late on the Hale Tiki story. What a beautiful gathering of TIKI talent to get a little piece of paradise in our southland. Great job….top shelf! It closed two years before I started carving TIKI so I never got to see it. Makes me sick to see such a beautiful thing go down so quickly. Wonder how it would go over in Charlotte?