Tiki's Grill & Bar is taking its aloha spirit to Japan, opening a sister restaurant in Honolulu's sister city of Shibuya, Tokyo, later this month.
Known for its Pacific Rim cuisine and retro South Pacific-inspired decor, Tiki's is located on the second floor of The Twin Fin hotel in Waikīkī, where it overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The Waikīkī restaurant has 300 seats and occupies about 10,000 square feet.
Tiki's Tokyo — a partnership between Tiki's Grill & Bar and Tiki's SHIBUYA Limited Liability Partnership — will be located at the new Yoyogi Park BE STAGE. It opens April 25 and will be the first Tiki's outside of the Islands.
According to a recent announcement, the new restaurant will include several concepts.
The 160-seat "Always Aloha" restaurant will offer a glimpse of the Hawai‘i lifestyle, and will serve Pacific Rim cuisine "fusing Hawai‘i and Japan food cultures," the announcement noted. Tiki's Tokyo also will have a 78-seat dog-friendly area with a menu for your pup.
“For over 20 years, we have brought the spirit of Aloha to our guests through great food, handcrafted cocktails, and warm hospitality,” Bill Tobin, co-founder and managing partner of Tiki’s Grill & Bar said in the announcement. “When a couple of my [University of Hawai‘i] buddies and I decided to open Tiki’s back in 2002, we knew we wanted to create a special place where we would want to hang out with friends and family, a place locals and visitors could gather, celebrate, and feel like part of our family — and we’re so grateful because we succeeded and have been busy from day one. We’re looking forward to Tiki’s Tokyo bringing that same kind of feeling to their guests in Japan."
Tobin told Aloha State Daily this week that Tiki's has been approached about expanding in the past, but said it was never the right time or the right people.
"This time, we felt like it was the right time and these [partners] synced with our values," Tobin said. "As we pursued it, we really felt like it was not only the right time, but a very good partnership and a really good feel about everything, so we pursued it. And though it took a long time to come to fruition, we feel fantastic about it."
When asked what he's most excited about with this venture, Tobin says he thinks the new partners "help bring credibility to us outside of Hawai‘i, but we also think that it allows us to test the brand's legs outside of Waikīkī."
"We really think that we have something exciting, and it's obviously been very successful for us for 22 years, but we don't know if that's just because [of the] location," he continued. "We feel like we do a great job, but this is going to be a good test for us."
The real goal, Tobin says, is to make sure Tiki's is "represented well," that the brand is positive and "we make sure we have a smile on our face, that we are sharing aloha to our guests, and that when people come in, they maybe get a little piece of Hawai‘i."
What to know about Tiki's Tokyo
Tobin said he and his partners built Tiki's in Hawai‘i as a "retro, South Pacific tiki restaurant," but the partners in Japan have designed the new restaurant with a more modern vibe.
"We're excited that it's kind of a newer tiki feel and a more modern tiki feel, so we're a little bit excited about that," he says.
Although the new restaurant has yet to open, "we've already heard so many things," Tobin says. "We're expecting a fantastic response."
Tobin says, too, that he's often asked about the menus.
The menus, he said, will be a bit different, but there will be cross-over items on both. There are some items on the Japanese menu that are more focused for people who live in Japan, but Tobin says, some of those items will likely be added to the menu in Hawai‘i, "so that the people [who] are visiting from Japan, they will recognize some of those things."
Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
