TIKI TOWN: The restaurateurs saving South Bay staples and tiki culture 

by Laura Garber 

Brian Eldridge and Patrick Mescall are on a mission that is partly cultural, oddly archeological, and wholly audacious. They are collecting and reviving South Bay restaurant classics that otherwise would have fossilized as only a nostalgic memory.

“They’re like our dinosaurs,” Eldridge said, “that we just keep alive, keep going, keep growing.” 

Eldridge and Mescall met in 2007 at Salt Creek Grill in El Segundo. The East Coast-born bartenders struck a friendship that turned into a South Bay restaurant resurgence. 

In 2017 they opened Paddy O’Brien’s Irish Pub in Redondo Beach, the classic pub was known as O’Hearns for decades.  

“That was a big thing for Brian and I to make sure we save these really cool places where it’s a melting pot of every demographic, every income level,” Mescall said, “Everybody meets there and becomes family at Paddy O’Brien’s.” 

They would go on to revive other struggling bars and restaurants; The Torrance Tavern, the Hula Hula Room, the Bounty Room and Sly Fox in Lawndale. 

In 2024 Eldridge and Mescall took over Eat At Joe’s, a Redondo Beach staple since 1969 known for its burgers and “John Wayne” breakfast special. They are only the third owners in the restaurant’s 55-year history, stepping in to save the classic spot from permanent closure.

“We love the little community gathering places where it’s really the stamp of the neighborhood,” Mescall said. “They go away often in Southern California. And they don’t come back once they’re gone.”

The bars Eldridge and Mescall frequently take on often possess a grandfathered-in ’48 license.’ This is a type of liquor license, which is no longer issued to new businesses in the state, permits the establishment to serve alcohol without also serving food. 

“That’s why we save them before they disappear,” Elridge said. “A lot of these owners keep them for 30 or 40 years and they haven’t really gone with the trends of the times to get them updated.” 

Eldridge and Mescall partnered with Dennis Doody in 2019 to revive Sportsman Bar in Corona after an introduction made by Hermosa Beach Bottle Inn owners, Hilary Condren and Christina Mishef. 

“[Condren and Mishef] have been our mentors in all this,” Mescall noted. “We’ve annoyed them with questions throughout the 10 years, and they have been some of our biggest supporters. Christina never forgets to send flowers to one of our openings.”

However, it’s not just old establishments the team is reviving, but niche bar cultures. 

Both Eldridge and Mescall explored the mystic tiki culture while on their respective honeymoons in Maui. They were aware the trend had begun making a resurgence nearly a decade ago across Southern California with a committed tiki community behind it. 

Tiki bars became a popular mainstay throughout the 1940s to 1960s with Hollywood stars among the laidback patrons before the movement was snubbed out by 1970s disco trends. 

Tiki bar culture began in Los Angeles when Ernest Raymond Gantt, a World War I veteran, opened Don The Beachcomber in Hollywood in the 1930s. He would become the father figure of tiki culture’s rapid spread. Gantt legally changed his name to Donn Beach, to reflect his dedication to the culture and business. 

On the heels of World War I, and the American militarization of Polynesian islands, soldiers returned to the mainland with suppressed war trauma but fond memories of the Pacific Rim culture learned abroad. 

“It was a very naive but positive emotion,” said Sven Kirsten, a tiki culture author, on a 2024 episode of PBS’ “Lost LA” that explored Los Angeles tiki bars. “A lot of Americans died there. It was not all hula girls and palm trees. But when [the soldiers] came back, this pop culture was already existing. They didn’t want to talk about [war] but wanted to embellish on the fun side of things.”

Kirsten explained that Hollywood constructed a romanticized tiki culture and offered an adventurous, exotic fantasy.  

“It made customers feel like they were in a South Seas movie,” he said.

Like many cultural trends, tiki waxed and waned, got uncool and then cool again. But as its most recent resurgence was well underway, Eldridge and Mescal found what they thought was the perfect place to further revive it. Tiki Kai, Hermosa Beach’s newest restaurant and the team’s biggest venture yet, is an advanced iteration of this concept. 

“This is a whole new world for us,” Mescall said. “We decided that the South Bay is our playground.” 

The ominous red-eyed, open-mouth tiki door fronting Tiki Kai signals an invitation for a tropical escape. 

The 14-foot wooden door designed by Peter Asmar of Asmar Studios is just one of the hundreds of tropical motifs found throughout the intimate establishment, which is located on the bustling walkway of Pier Plaza in Hermosa Beach. 

The Polynesian-inspired eatery opened to the public on Wednesday, November 5, with reservations maxed out for the next two weeks. 

The goal of the Tiki Kai team is to include a high-end dining experience during the escape, Mescall said.  Chef Calvin Holladay developed a menu that includes dishes such as Macadamia Mahi Mahi, Pule Hu Steak and Huli Huli Chicken, combining Hawaiian traditional flavors with some added culinary inventiveness. Tiki Kai strives to be on-par with the trend of chef-driven restaurants growing in Hermosa Beach. 

“Tiki Kai is in line with this greater trend that we’re seeing with food centric and chef-driven concepts in downtown Hermosa Beach,” Tony Cordi, a South Bay real estate broker said. “It’s not just that they’re coming in, they’re actually doing well.”

The team hopes that the customers can find “a fine dining restaurant here on the Pier, where you can get a great meal and also an amazing drink,” Eldridge said. 

“Yeah, and unpretentious hospitality,” Mescall added. 

Their two decades of experience in South Bay restaurants has resulted in a unique spin on hospitality. 

“We own Irish pubs, a diner, a Hawaii Polynesian tiki bar,” Mescall said. “The Hawaiians and Irish, I think, are known for hospitality. They are two cultures that are very warm, inviting and serving. We like to give Irish hospitality, Aloha hospitality and we combine that.”

Mescall says the reason they committed to the location at 73 Pier Avenue is because customers won’t be able to find anything similar to their tiki experience within 15 or 20 miles.

“We wanted to make sure if we were going to do it, stand out because we’re playing amongst some of the best doing what they’re doing here,” he said. 

Tiki Kai shares customers with major players in the South Bay restaurant scene, such as The Sharkeez Restaurant Group, which owns nearby Pier Plaza establishments like Baja Sharkeez, Tower 12 and Palmilla. 

“Pier Plaza after the pandemic has not been the same as pre-pandemic,” Mescall said. “And everyone wants it to be back to the scene it was. We’re not fighting for our customers.”

“Everyone wants this place to be the bustling place. And they’ve even mentioned to us, ‘It’s awesome that you’re going to bring more new people down to the Pier,” Mescall said of  restaurants like AttaGirl, Ryla and The Sharkeez Group stores in Hermosa Beach. 

Eldridge and Mescall recall running around Pier Plaza in their bartending years, hanging out at the local spots. 

“To be able to come back here and open up our own place, right here at this prime time,” Mescall said. “And to deliver something — whether you’re a tiki super fan or have never been into a tiki bar, you’ll be able to enjoy this space.”

The restaurant offers a modern take on the classic tiki culture experience. Crafted by consultant mixologist, Kyle Rioux, the drink menu features updated versions of traditional tiki cocktails like The Zombie and 1944 Mai Tai from famous tiki hotspots, Don The Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s. 

Ghost Ship Grog, one of the venue’s most popular drinks, is a spin on Blackbeard’s Ghost aligning with its flavors of apricot and falernum, a Caribbean liqueur. The Ghost Ship Grog includes an in-house made pandan syrup, a Southeast Asian palm leaf combining sweet and nutty flavor profiles becoming increasingly prominent within the tiki world. The cocktail is served in a mug designed by Tiki Farm’s art director, Tank Standing Buffalo, another notable tiki artist. All the glassware and traditional tiki mugs were designed by Tiki Farm, which is a revered manufacturer in the tiki industry, according to Eldridge and Mescall. 

Tiki Kai maintains a hidden menu of ingredients, inspired by the mystery surrounding classic tiki bars. For instance, cocktail descriptions might list a “secret rum blend” or a “blend of rum and cognac.” To further conceal recipes, the liquor mixes are organized below the redwood tree bartop using a color-blocked system and recipe codes, preventing the actual ingredients from being revealed.

Spike’s Breezeway Cocktail Hour, a YouTube show dedicated to the tiki culture phenomenon, took an inside peek at Tiki Kai before their opening. The episode interviewing Rioux has over 21,000 views on YouTube. Rioux shared the inspiration for the “Fisherman’s Son” cocktail. The menu describes the “dangerous waters” cocktail as a “Coconut-Washed Teeling Irish Whiskey, Banane, Coconut, Cinnamon, & Guinness Foam.”

“The concept for this drink is trying to take my very Irish father to a tiki bar but he’s just too Irish to enjoy himself,” Rioux said in the video. Rioux added that the Pier already is home to two Irish pubs and that this drink could cater to the accidental pub patron walk-in. 

The Pier Plaza restaurant is a bigger step from their already established tiki cocktail lounge, the Hula Hula Room in Torrance. 

“Hula Hula is more of a Hawaiian tropical vibe with tiki. This one is full-blown tiki restaurant and tiki bar,” Eldridge said.

Pops of Polynesian “eye-candy” cover the interior lava rock walls. These include skewered skulls, thatched-hut booths, hanging pufferfish and dozens of tiki wood carvings and lamps by Southern California tiki artesian, Tony Murphy, better known as “Tiki Tony.” The restaurant houses his largest collection of tiki artwork.  

The dimly lit bar, a staple element of tiki bars, includes over 125 lanterns and a red LED strip along the walkway reminiscent of flowing lava. 

Eldridge and Mescall say the restaurant fulfills their original vision for what it could be in ways even they had not quite imagined. 

“We had a killer team to put this together for us and take our vision…We’re not very detailed, we just throw stuff at people,” Mescall said. “And for them to deliver this for us, we were very happy.” 

A custom Tiki Kai mug, designed by the artist Tom Laura, who is known as “BigToe” in the tiki art community, is currently being produced. The mug is expected to be available in the coming months.

The restaurant’s striking visual vibe has already scored viral hits on social media and quickly made it a popular destination for both aesthetic-seekers and tiki bar enthusiasts across Southern California and beyond.

The windowlessness of the restaurant on Pier Plaza was an intentional choice to create the illusion of escape for the wayward beachcomber. 

“People thought we were crazy, that we’re in Hermosa, spending a lot of rent to be out here, and we have completely blocked it off,” Mescall said. “You come in here and we want to transport you. And that’s what the tiki community is, kind of escapism, kind of a Disneyland for adults.” 

The opening of Tiki Kai doesn’t mark the end of the team’s efforts to save and revitalize well-known spots. Their future plans include launching a restaurant at the site of the former Texas Loosey’s in Torrance to expanding their dinosaur collection. ER