Key members of The Mai-Kai team traveled to Orlando in early April to share updates and plans for the $15 million restoration project that is entering its filnal stages in South Florida. The beloved restaurant has been closed since late 2020, but new interest in its history and rejuvenation has never been higher.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Tiki-a-Go-Go: Panel discussion overview | New kitchen, bar details | Artists showcase their work | Landscape architect’s plans | Pop-up cocktails
Latest news: April refurbishment updates
An audience of several hundred attended the panel discussion Return to Paradise: The Mai-Kai Rises Again, moderated by The Atomic Grog at the first annual Tiki-a-Go-Go. It was an honor to interview and get insights from manager Kern Mattei, creative director “Typhoon Tommy” Allsmiller, artist Scott “Flounder” Scheidly, public relations director Pia Dahlquist, author Tim “Swanky” Glazner, The Hukilau organizer Richard Oneslager, plus Jesse Muller from landscape architecture firm Perry-Becker Design.
The sold-out event at the at the Caribe Royale Resort ran from April 5-7 and also included a pop-up bar featuring Mai-Kai cocktails, served by Mattei and his son Cheyne. [See photos below] The veteran manager also joined us for the presentation Mai-Kai Cocktails: Tiki History in a Glass. Mahalo to everyone who attended the packed symposium.
Following is a full recap of the panel discussion, including exclusive new images from the presentation. At the end of the month, we caught up with Mattei and Allsmiller for an update on all the work going on at The Mai-Kai, also detailed below.
The next major Mai-Kai event is planned for June, when The Hukilau will offer attendees holding Aloha and South Seas passes exclusive tours of the restored interior and a sneak peek at what’s still to come. The 22nd Tiki weekender is scheduled for June 6-9 at the Beachcomber Resort on Pompano Beach. Click here for our exclusive preview and click here to buy tickets.
Recent coverage
* Mai-Kai kitchen and bar take shape as team heads to Tiki-a-Go-Go (March 2024)
* Exterior reimagination up next as $15 million Mai-Kai project plows ahead (February 2024)
Story archive: Full coverage of The Mai-Kai refurbishment
Tiki-a-Go-Go welcomes The Mai-Kai for presentations, cocktails
It was fitting that the first presentation at the first Tiki-a-Go-Go was focused on Florida’s beloved Polynesian palace, established in 1956. This new Tiki weekender puts a heavy focus on vintage Tiki and Florida attractions in its programming. Click here for a photo recap of the event, which featured two days of live music and entertainment, vendors, guest Tiki bars, and more.
Return to Paradise: The Mai-Kai Rises Again kicked off the event on Friday, April 5 at 11 a.m. in the Caribe Royale Resort’s massive Caribbean Ballroom. The enthusiastic attendees applauded throughout the presentation as the panel of experts talked about the history and future of the historic restaurant.
The first to speak was Glazner, author of Mai-Kai: History and Mystery of the Iconic Tiki Restaurant and the upcoming Searching for Don the Beachcomber. He admitted that he was “very skeptical” of a possible restoration after hearing about the scope of the damage caused by a roof collapse over the kitchen in October 2020.
“I really didn’t think The Mai-Kai would come back,” he said. “The Mai-Kai property is worth a lot of money.” But when the founding Thornton family decided to sell to a historic preservationist, he was “happy and shocked.”
Glazner said he talked to Bill Fuller of Barlington Group, head of the ownership group, shortly after the purchase. He said Fuller told him: “I want The Mai-Kai to be as close to 1956 as I can make it.” As the restoration unfolded, Glazner said, he’s happy he’s been able to contribute.
The historian said he scanned old Mai-Kai fabric from the 1960s that they’re now using to re-create shirts for the staff. Glazner said he’s surprised at the detail of the restoration, especially the work of Allsmiller and Scheidly. “They’re making it better than it’s ever been, but the same as it always was, he said.”
The artists text him photos of artifacts they find, asking if he knows what they are. “It’s been great to see that,” Glazner said of the care taken to preserve the past and restore things appropriately. “All the lamps are going to work,” he said. “That’s going to be exciting.”
“People will miss the black garbage bags,” quipped Dahlquist, a reference to the makeshift method The Mai-Kai used over the years to catch rain coming in through leaks in the roof. The bags are long gone and the roof rebuilt during the early stages of the renovation. As a member of The Mai-Kai family since 1990, the director of sales and marketing has seen her fair share of Mai-Kai history.
It was love at first sight when she first saw The Mai-Kai, Dahlquist said. She joined the staff after working in the tourism and travel industry, becoming the restaurant’s biggest client by booking up to seven large tour busses every week by the late ’80s. She said the owners offered her a three-month job helping them develop a tour and travel program, and she’s still part of the family 34 years later.
“I’ve had a wonderful time,” she said. “I work with amazing people.” The owners were put to the test, however, after the roof collapse that was spurred by freak rainfall. Dahlquist said she passed 18 cars stalled in water during her 2-mile trek to work that fateful day, arriving at a scene that was “like walking into a funeral.”
It quickly became clear that they wouldn’t be able to reopen, so Dahlquist said she immediately redirected The Mai-Kai’s eight phone lines into her cellphone. She still answers every call, sometimes up to 100 a day, from loyal and concerned customers. “I make a point to get back to everyone,” she said.
Many people share “all the sad and happy memories,” Dahlquist said. “It’s just wonderful. That’s what The Mai-Kai is all about.” That’s not to say some don’t express a certain amount of frustration as a reopening date still appears to be elusive. “We have people coming from all over the world, and they plan their vacations to come to The Mai-Kai.”
But, for the most part, “people are so enthusiastic,” she said. “It’s amazing that it’s continuing. It’s going to be in its glory, even if it’s taking a while.”
Preview: The Hukilau 2024 attracts bands, bars and VIPs from around the globe, returns to The Mai-Kai
Oneslager spoke next, representing The Hukilau, the East Coast’s longest-running Tiki weekender. Since 2015, he has operated the event that first came to The Mai-Kai in its second year in 2003 and has remained intrinsically linked.
He also has a financial interest in The Mai-Kai as one of the minority investors in the new ownership group. Oneslager said he was told he was the runner-up in the bidding to Fuller’s group. He joked that he probably lost out because his plan was “to bulldoze it and bring back Radio Shack and Blockbuster Video.”
Like many, his attraction to The Mai-Kai was instantaneous. “I fell in love with the place the first time I saw it,” he said, adding that he didn’t hesitate to write a check when Fuller put his team together and assumed ownership in 2021.
Admitting he can’t speak officially for The Mai-Kai, Oneslager said: “If I were a betting man, and I am, I would say it’s not going to be open for business when The Hukilau is in town June 6-9. But we will be doing a tour. I think it’s actually going to be more fun to get a sneak peek and behind-the-scenes tour before it actually opens. It’s going to be a lot of fun to get everybody over there.” Note: An Aloha or South Seas pass is required to join the tour.
Longtime manager previews new kitchen and bar
Kern Mattei is now in his 31st year as manager of The Mai-Kai, longer than anyone – including his father Kern Mattei Sr. But nothing he saw prior to 2020 likely prepared him for what was about to come. Pandemic? No problem. Roof collapse requiring kitchen and bar to be rebuilt from the ground up? A total restoration of the historic property? They don’t teach that in hospitality school.
“It’s been a transition, from working nights and staying up late, seeing all the people coming in and having a good time with all the employees, to now getting up in the morning and being in charge of all this construction,” Mattei said. “It’s a whole different lifestyle now.”
He’s on site five days a week, dealing with every detail while “learning about construction” and providing supplies for Allsmiller and Scheidly. He joked that he never knew there were than many types of screws and nails. He said he’s experiencing The Mai-Kai “from the inside out, deeper than ever before.”
Mattei also gets to express himself creatively, working with Allsmiller on key projects such as the lighting. “We’re updating all the lights to LED, and we get a chance to work in unison,” he said. This gives them the opportunity to fine-tune the ambience in all of the restaurant’s nooks and crannies.
“Tommy loves to pick different colors, and I love to pick the different brightness levels,” Mattei said. With Scheidly and others joining the effort, he joked that “it does take an army” to change a light bulb, spurring laughter from the audience.
But Mattei will soon transition back to doing what he’s always done well: Set up and run the kitchen and back-of-house bars. In this case, both are brand spanking new. “We were able to gut the kitchen, gut the service bar, and gut The Molokai bar,” he said.
The old kitchen that lost its roof won’t be touched in phase 1 of the project, Mattei said. “In lieu of replacing that right away, we built a temporary kitchen in the back of house,” he said. “Plans are still evolving for phase 2.”
The temporary kitchen is no slouch, however. “We’re bringing in all new, state-of-the-art equipment – new refrigerators, new blenders, new everything,” Mattei said. The old kitchen was frustrating, he said, because equipment was always breaking down due to its age.
He said he’s excited to use the new combi ovens, a combination convection oven and steamer that will allow the staff to pre-cook and hold food for big events. They will be able to prep and cook food “better and faster than before.”
As for the menus, there’s no need to worry. “We plan to keep all the old Mai-Kai favorites on the food menu,” plus some new items to freshen it up, Mattei said. On the cocktail menu, “we’re keeping all the old Mai-Kai rum standards,” he said. They also plan to add vodka, tequila, bourbon and scotch drinks “so people who don’t partake in rum can also enjoy a delicious tropical cocktail.”
Along with a new spin on cocktails will come a new spin on the famous main service bar, which has always been hidden from guest view deep inside the kitchen. Even when famed mixologist Mariano Licudine ran the bar from 1956 through 1979, you never saw him or any other bartenders making drinks. This follows the tradition of Don the Beachcomber, who also coded his recipes to keep them from being stolen by the competition. The Mai-Kai still follows this practice.
The new exception will be the way the bar looks, along with a chance to get a glimpse inside. Mattei said it started when Fuller saw one of several videos of his back-of-house tour in which the bar isn’t particularly pretty to look at. Fuller said he wanted it “to be themed out.”
“The old service bar was white tiles and stainless steel,” Mattei said. The new space “is going to be themed like the inside of a Tiki bar.” But it won’t just be the bar. “The whole restaurant is going to be themed, from front of house to back of house,” he said. The only exceptions will be the core area of the kitchen and small Molokai service bar.
There was a round of applause from the audience when Mattei said they will be able to “get a glimpse at the bartenders while they’re actually working making the cocktails.” This sneak peek will be available via a window in the gift shop that overlooks the newly designed space, allowing all guests – not just tour groups – to see into the service bar for the first time. For more on the bar design, check out the latest refurbishment news below.
Artists revel in challenge, importance of restoration work
Allsmiller, a veteran theme park designer who became The Mai-Kai’s creative director in early 2022, took the Tiki-a-Go-Go audience inside the restoration project with stories, photos and a new video. He was joined by fellow Orlando-area artist Scheidly, who joined the team in March 2023.
Both had been involved in the Tiki scene for a number of years, Allsmiller as a builder and Scheidly as a fine artist. But even that could not prepare them for the scope of what they would encounter with the massive Mai-Kai, which includes a 26,000-square-foot historic building that sits on 2.7 acres of property that will also be highly themed.
They didn’t hesitate for a second, however. “It’s a magical place,” Allsmiller said. “I got married there. It’s a very important place to all of us. We just jumped at the chance. Who wouldn’t want to?”
When Scheidly came on board, he said, he looked up at the ceiling under the 40-foot A-frame and just shook his head, wondering how they would ever fix the dozens of vintage lamps. Now, 14 months later, he recently posted a photo on Instagram of the finished project.
“Some of those lamps in the very top are 6 feet tall,” Scheidly said. “You don’t know it because they’re so high.” The crew had to build a special custom scaffold to reach the peak behind the showroom stage. Scheidly gladly climbed to the very top, recently joined by South Florida artist Tom Fowner. Allsmiller, who has a fear of heights, said he was fine remaining on ground level.
So how is the view from up there? “It’s amazing,” Scheidly said. “I tell people I’ve been places no one else has. When they tunneled under the bathroom and under The Molokai, I climbed under there just so I could say I’ve been under The Mai-Kai. I’ve been under Tonga (dining room). I’ve been everywhere up in that peak.”
As for dealing with the scope of the project, Allsmiller said he simply used his theme park experience, which includes the Universal and Disney parks. “It’s one bite at a time,” he said. Or, more accurately, one room at a time as they planned out The Mai-Kai refurbishment work.
“The Molokai is all but done,” he said, noting that only the back bar equipment remains to be installed. “We built a deck outside of the exit door between the windows and the waterfall.” Most of the dining rooms are either complete or in the final stages.
Every area of the building involves lamp restoration. Allsmiller said they counted around 250 of the hanging works of art, and they’ve touched at least 200 of them so far. They also need to build new lamps to fill the reimagined back bar and porte-cochère. “When we’re all done, there’s going to be close to 300 lamps,” he said.
Allsmiller shrugs off complaints about the amount of time taken on the restoration. You can’t compare it to any other project, he said, adding: “Everything in here is hand-made, custom-made, custom-ordered.”
When they can’t find missing or damaged items, they find a way to restore or recreate them. While working on the porte-cochère, they encountered custom-made decorative panels that had fallen into disrepair. They didn’t even know they had lights behind them until they removed them.
“They were all dark, they were dirty,” Allsmiller said. “You really couldn’t even notice that there was something up there. Scott and I took them down, cleaned them out, took them apart, re-fiberlglassed what needed to be done, then sat and hand-painted them.” They’ve since been reinstalled with all new lights and surrounding enhancements. “It’s amazing,” he said.
Several slides were shown of recent restoration work, starting with the gift shop, aka The Mai-Kai Trading Post. “The hard part about a room that’s custom-made is you can’t just go and buy that panel,” Allsmiller said. “And if it’s broken, or it’s waterlogged, or missing, you have to make an entirely new one. So we had to take down and make molds to recreate all the custom paneling in there.”
The award-winning women’s restroom has the same ornate Asian theming established during The Mai-Kai’s 1970 expansion. It too needed lots of custom work on the panels. But unlike the gift shop, it was also covered in distinctive 3-inch mirrored tiles with a gold variation in them, Allsmiller said.
“You can’t buy those anymore,” he said. “They don’t exist. I searched everywhere, Kern and I both.” Then, finally, Mattei stumbled upon five boxes of 12-by-12 gold-variegated tiles on eBay in the original 1960s boxes. The seller in California didn’t offer shipping, so they found someone on the West Coast who could pick them up, and Mattei contracted with a cross-country shipping company.
The shipping took more than six weeks, then a crew member spent three days cutting them into 3-inch squares. They ended up with 3,000 vintage replacement tiles. “A lot of tiles were missing, a lot of tiles were damaged,” Allsmiller said of the restroom in its old state. “There were whole panels that over the years were waterlogged and covered with black trash bags. The whole panel was gone.”
The time and effort yielded great results. “We had so many new tiles, we got to go back and restore the bathroom to its original glory with all the tiles where they needed to go,” Allsmiller said.
Another slide showed the work of Shawna Marie Tice, who creates artificial flower displays under the name Pleated Peacock. Her previous work includes a refurbishment of the Enchanted Tiki Room in Disneyland, Allsmiller said.
Her flowers were added to the rock garden behind the stage, brightening up the ambience, Allsmiller said. “It’s so much color. Between the lamps and the flowers, The Mai-Kai is really feeling vibrant and beautiful.”
Allsmiller said he can’t wait for guests to return and see the finished project. “It’s kind of the thing that always fuels me,” he said, remembering how he would sit at the entrance to Diagon Alley at Universal Studios in Orlando and watch people react after seeing the work he and his fellow designers did on The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
“It’s that wonderment that you helped create something that changes people’s lives,” he said. “I can’t wait to watch you guys have a Rum Barrel and just walk around staring at everything.”
In closing, Allsmiller narrated a short video walk-through of some of his recent work, which was shared online by the Crusoe Society.
New entry experience will envelop guests in exotic landscaping, Polynesian culture
Last but not least, Jesse Muller, the marketing manager for landscape architecture and thematic design firm Perry-Becker Design, showed off some of the plans for the ambitious reimagining of The Mai-Kai’s outdoor spaces, concentrating on what guests will soon see when they arrive on the property.
Mattei described what they hope to achieve: “The experience at The Mai-Kai starts when you cross that wooden bridge. It goes throughout the parking lot, and the rear wall is also going to be themed, the whole parking lot is going to be themed and lit so anywhere you are on the property will be a visual experience.”
To accomplish that task, the owners turned to one of the most respected and creative firms who do this type of work in Florida. After the original landscape architects didn’t work out, Allsmiller suggested the experts whose work he was continually showing off as the gold standard.
At the same time, the Perry-Becker architects had an interest in The Mai-Kai after completing similar work on Disney World’s Polynesian Village Resort, where they spearheaded the area development design of the entire new entrance. The timing was perfect.
Perry-Becker also worked on many other Central Florida theme park projects, plus resorts throughout Florida and the Caribbean. Muller said the firm tries “to bring that guest experience from the theme park industry and the hospitality industry and infuse it into everything that we do.” In addition to themed entertainment and hospitality, the Orlando-based Perry-Becker also works in the zoological and land development sectors.
In addition to the Polynesian Village, recent high-profile projects include the central hub in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Toy Story Land in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and the new Sunseeker Resort in Port Charlotte. Perry-Becker also did master planning for ZooTampa.
At the Polynesian, Muller said, his firm designed the entire entry experience: the hardscape you walk on, the lava stones, the railings, the curbs, the rocks, the plantings, the lighting, and the water feature itself. The tropical jungle on either side of the entrance doors “was just a dirt pit” when they started, he said. Not unlike the current Mai-Kai parking lot.
Muller said the intention was to make it look like it was always there, but also more immersive than the area was previously. “It’s a much more inviting experience, closer to the guests as they walk up from their vehicles,” he said. “It kind of welcomes you into that community.”
A similar philosophy informs the work Perry-Becker has done for The Mai-Kai. Muller said the plan is to give guests “the experience that they deserve and the feeling that they’re somewhere special. That translates not just to the things you see at eye level and above, but also what your walking over, and the different materials that we use.”
The immersion will begin as soon as you enter the property. The driveway is designed to look like you’re in on a back road in Hawaii. “We’re going to be putting in concrete that’s thematically designed to resemble dirt,” Muller said, including the curbs and cracks in the pavement (see image below).
It won’t feel like a driveway, but more like you’ve entered a tropical experience, Muller said. Next is a roundabout, where you get out of your vehicle and “step out onto the shore of this island, onto the sandy beach, and it will transition into a lava rock slab as if you’re actually entering The Mai-Kai from some other destination, whether it’s your car or some kind of ship or ocean vessel.”
Playing off existing green jade terrazzo tile, the Perry-Becker design calls for green jade chips to be used as banding between stones in the entry walkway. The reference calls back to the green pounamu jewelry of the Maori culture in New Zealand. The pavement will include other nods to Polynesian iconography, Muller said while showing slides of the plans (see image).
The six circles with “P” in the center represent the trunks of the giant banyans that stand outside The Mai-Kai’s porte-cochère. “It’s a tricky process to work around something as historic as that tree,” Muller said. “It’s something we knew early on that we had to preserve and protect at all costs. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do some cool things around it.”
One of the cool things is a new bar that will allow you to sit outside and have a cocktail while appreciating the new details. Arriving cars will cross the existing bridge, then curve right over the old footprint of the Bora Bora Room. “We’ve taken advantage of that real estate,” Muller said. “You’re actually going to be able to drive underneath the canopy of that huge banyan tree, whereas before you were driving past it.”
Even the most functional features will be heavily themed. The roundabout is intended to keep traffic from backing up on Federal Highway and allow for easy drop-off and pick-up at the valet stand. But its design takes “inspiration from the Polynesian culture, the tapa cloth patterns that a lot of us are wearing today,” Muller said.
Muller showed several other images, including one of the roundabout’s centerpiece: a water and lighting feature that simulates a volcanic caldera. We hope to share those plans when work progresses on the site. “It will be very exciting to get to that point,” he said.
In the meantime, Muller said, his company is preparing to become more directly involved at the site. They’ve been working on getting permits and waiting for the underground work to be completed. [See update below] The roadway will be first, he said, “so we can see the curvature of the road. Some mock-ups are being done right now of different kinds of paving samples, so we’ll be able to review those with the teams so they can see exactly what the texture looks like of the sand, and the lava stone, and the dirt road.”
There’s also a lot of prep work being done on the plants and trees that are planned for the property, Muller said. It takes time to procure everything, and they need to make sure they can get the right sizes.
In closing, Muller said he’s “ecstatic” and “very appreciative” to be involved with the project. “Working on the Polynesian Resort, that was always a dream project for me. And to be able to translate a lot of that to this project has also been a blessing. I feel very happy and very fortunate.”
Turning to Allsmiller and Scheidly, he added: “While you guys have all been having fun on the inside, we’re finally going to get to start on some of the exterior work here pretty soon.”
Mai-Kai cocktails featured during Tiki-a-Go-Go’s climactic bash
Tiki-a-Go-Go attendees received a special treat on Saturday (April 6), when Mai-Kai cocktails were served during the final evening event featuring live bands and hosted by Allsmiller in the large ballroom where Friday’s panel discussion was held. Allsmiller also designed and built the two Tiki bars where drinks were served.
Mattei and his son Cheyne were assisted by Dahlquist in serving up two of The Mai-Kai’s most popular cocktails, the Barrel O’ Rum and Black Magic. With the restaurant’s bars and kitchens unavailable, Mattei spent the previous days prepping 10 gallons at home before the crew brought all their supplies to Orlando. Also featured at the pop-up bar was a small replica of the iconic streetside sign, created by Allsmiller.
Later that evening, guests could also walk next door and sample cocktails from Don the Beachcomber beverage director Marie King and her crew. With their new location in Madeira Beach on the Gulf Coast open since February and new locations on the way, this classic brand has joined The Mai-Kai to make Florida a top destination for a vintage Tiki experience. Other Florida bars and bartenders serving drinks at Tiki-a-Go-Go included Aku Aku (Orlando), Bar Tiki (Clearwater Beach), The Honu (Dunedin), Luau Lads (Jacksonville) , Permanent Vacation (Orlando), and Suffering Bastard (Sanford).
Saturday night’s “Sounds of Florida Surf” party featured live music by The Disasternauts, The Hula Girls, and The Kreepy Tikis. Hundreds of festivalgoers enjoyed the bands and cocktails, mingling and dancing in front of the large stage. After their 2-hour pop-up slot, the Matteis and Dahlquist joined the festivities, sampling drinks by VIPs including Doc Parks, and relaxing after a long two days of prepping and presentations.
The Mai-Kai team was also spotted Sunday (April 7) at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort before they headed back to South Florida. The Mattei boys also enjoyed a day in the Magic Kingdom as part of the Tiki-a-Go-Go finale, the Magical Tiki Meet Up. The annual social event is organized by Allsmiller and his wife Kari.
Coming soon: A full recap of the April 6 symposium, Mai-Kai Cocktails: Tiki History in a Glass, which I hosted with Mattei. We’ll include additional information and images not featured in the presentation.
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APRIL 2024: Lamp project reaches climax as parking lot prepared for reimagination
Returning from Tiki-a-Go-Go the week of April 8, there was no rest for The Mai-Kai crew as Mattei, Allsmiller and Scheidly went right back to work on the restoration of the restaurant’s guest areas and reimagination of the back-of-house. Mattei also keeps tabs on the vast infrastructure work going on outside under the supervision of the general contractor and ownership team.
I visited at the very end of April, meeting with Mattei and Allsmiller and getting updates on what happened during the month. They were joined again by Fowner, who became part of the team in March. (The South Florida artist also attended the Orlando event, selling his carvings and other creations in the Tiki-a-Go-Go marketplace.)
A major milestone was reached recently with the completion of the refurbishment of all the vintage hanging lamps under The Mai-Kai’s main A-frame, which soars to a reported 40 feet (but is probably even higher).
Scheidly posted a photo on Instagram on May 5 showing the lamps in all their glory. He wrote: “All 62 lamps in the main A-frame are completed! Most of them completely redone, some fixed and all cleaned. Since I started here 14 months ago I was dreading this part of the job and it’s a huge relief!!”
Allsmiller said that the scaffolding is still up, but “90 percent of the lamps are done” in the dining rooms with views of the refurbished stage and Polynesian Islander Revue, the oldest continually-running authentic South Seas stage show in the United States (including Hawaii).
“It takes your breath away. When people come around the corner and see it, they’re going to get chills,” Allsmiller said of the upcoming sneak preview planned for The Hukilau in June.
They ended up touching every lamp under the A-frame, he said, including the largest one. Many of those in the upper areas are enormous, reaching a height of 6 feet or more. The only indoor front-of-house space without working lamps is the Tahiti Room, a non-showroom that still lacks power while electricians complete their work. Many of that room’s completed lamps are just waiting to be hung.
Then there are the outdoor spaces: the rear Lanai and the entryway porte-cochère. “Bill really wants the porte-cochère to look like the A-frame,” Allsmiller said of Fuller, the owner. So he’s working on some ideas to make weather-resistant lamps that look similar to those inside.
Allsmiller said he has “some materials in mind” that won’t be as susceptible to Florida’s unforgiving weather. “It should really be cool,” he said. “Knock on wood they last.”
Allsmiller and Scheidly, with recent help from Fowner, have restored and rebuilt more than 200 of the vintage lamps that have hung in The Mai-Kai for six decades or more. The artists found schematic plans for some of the lamps in The Mai-Kai archives, which they followed during the restoration. Many were created by the venerable interior decor supplier Oceanic Arts.
Past coverage of lamp restoration: September 2023 | July 2023 | April 2023
Back bar gets full-blown Tiki theming
Besides the lamps, much of the work in April focused on the reimagination of the back service bar. As Mattei and Allsmiller said during the panel discussion at Tiki-a-Go and we detailed last month, they want the bartenders and other employees to feel like they’re working in a Tiki bar, not in a regular kitchen.
Allsmiller and Scheidly have been busy doing just that while Fowner helps with the woodwork. The 25-foot-long bar features not only five bartender stations, but also a custom wood-carved front with ambient lighting. The two levels of bar top are made of hard bamboo flooring that Allsmiller said not only looks great, but is also highly durable.
The bamboo grid hanging above the bar is not only decorative, it serves as the hub for new custom lamps that Allsmiller and Scheidly have created, inspired by the hundreds they’ve worked on in the front of house. Those hanging above the bartenders were designed with not just mood lighting, but also additional white spotlights that illuminate the work stations.
When the back bar is finished, it will feature some 20 new lamps, Allsmiller said. The team is also theming some of the walls with
tiles, custom-cut wood, and “a bunch of bamboo,” Allsmiller said. Later, The Mai-Kai’s vintage rum collection will return to join some new displays of historic mugs, he said.
The equipment in the bar and adjacent kitchen is all installed, waiting to be connected. The electric, water and drain lines still need to be activated, Mattei said.
Another new area getting special theming is the handicapped restroom, which was built into a back-of-house space but will be accessible via a door near the gift shop and women’s restroom. Fowner has been painting and working on the theming, which Allsmiller imagines as the “captain’s quarters” in the rear of a ship.
It will look more upscale than the men’s room and other nearby nautical-themed areas. The woodwork features gold-leaf trim, and the rear wall will feature what will look like the rear windows in the upper deck of a ship. The “window” will have a lighting effect to simulate the sunset, Allsmiller said.
Next door, the gift shop’s new wood floor is getting its final coats of stain, Mattei said. It will match the aged look of the old floor. Once that’s done, they can begin reconfiguring and decorating the space. One of the new features will be a window offering views into the back bar.
Meanwhile, the renovation of The Molokai bar’s guest areas is done. The last phase of work will involve the installation of new equipment in the back-of-house bar and kitchen. The water windows are fully refurbished, awaiting a new pump to be connected and the water turned on.
“We’re cranking away,” Mattei said of all the work ongoing inside. Meanwhile, the outdoor transformation awaits more infrastructure before it can begin.
Parking lot a work in progress as reimagination looms
When we arrived in late April, there wasn’t a whole lot of action outside, save for Allsmiller and Fowner cutting and routing wood under the porte-cochère for use in the back bar. But there were signs all around of the massive underground project that is setting the stage for the reimagination of the parking lot detailed at Tiki-a-Go-Go.
Trenches containing new pipes were visible across the property. Purple signifies irrigation, Mattei said, which explains the long stretch of pipe along the outside of the back wall. Green is for drainage, while grey designates electric lines. All are needed for the new features and effects that will be part of the new outdoor guest areas.
Last to be done will be gas lines. This is the trickiest part of the project, requiring a lot of negotiation between the architects, the engineers, and the city of Oakland Park, Mattei said. Once they get approval, they can start digging and install a brand new system to power all the new Tiki torches that will be scattered across the property.
When that will happen is anybody’s guess, but the previously announced summer timeframe still seems within reach. There were very few changes in the permits listed in Oakland Park’s online database since our last report in late March.
One additional project was added, bringing the total to nine that are currently active or in review. The new permit, issued April 30, is for electrical work to “install landscaping lighting.” It most recently passed an “electrical conduit inspection” on May 2 and was listed as 80 percent complete as of May 6, though the permit doesn’t expire until July 31.
One existing permit was extended to July 31, the longest date we found in the database. It covers paving, grading and drainage work, including asphalt removal. Listed as 50 percent complete, this is likely an over-arching permit for much of the parking lot work. It received a “partial pass” during an irrigation rough inspection May 2.
The remainder of the permits were virtually unchanged, with the next longest date of expiration being July 17. We saw no permits that extend into August yet, but summer technically runs through Sept. 22, so there’s still a relatively wide range of dates that fall into the projected reopening timeframe.
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