On a typically overcast day in early April, Eric Rozestraten is dreaming of tropical vibes. His second bar, the tiki-themed Easy Sailor, is set to open in June.
“That porthole window literally is the first thing you see,” Rozestraten said, standing in the space at 622 Park Ave. that will soon house his creation: a watering hole that aims to be an exotic getaway.
The porthole hasn’t been installed yet. Neither has the 18-foot bar backdrop that will house 300 rums, nor the cabana structure with the 200-year-old lumber beam that will hold it up, nor the kitchen that will serve up spicy noodles.
But Rozestraten and his Easy Sailor partners Dan Herzog and Kelly McDonald (who also partner with him on Jack’s Extra Fancy) and Jay Speranza (of Tony D’s and Cotoletta) are ready for a break from the doldrums. They’re betting Rochesterians are, too, especially the Park Avenue nightlife regulars.
Tiki pop-ups, with their signature colorful, blazing mixed drinks and escapist vibes, have found a welcome home here, in a city with both a prolonged winter season and a revived interest in craft cocktails. In August, the Rochester Tiki Week mini festival returns for a second year of rum-centric libations and Oceanic cuisine; it’s preempted by the twelfth annual Rochester Cocktail Revival in June and the second Hoochenanny Whiskey & Music Festival a few weeks before.
“Tiki is the flavor of escapism,” McDonald said.
That mindset is one that can be traced to the origins of the tiki aesthetic. The first two tiki bars were started up by white American men in California in the 1930s. As tiki grew, establishments fused Polynesian imagery, Chinese cuisine and Caribbean rum to create an exotic fantasia — a place for Americans to escape. This caught on, especially in the post-World War II economic boom.
As the roots of tiki spring from an American amalgamation of other cultures, tiki culture itself has often been at the center of a discussion about cultural appropriation.
Taj Smith, the executive director for culture and diversity education at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said culture at large is meant to be shared across groups. But the way that process plays out is important.
“I don’t believe every individual comes at culture with colonial intentions; I think some earnestly think it’s a cool idea that they want to share with others,” Smith said. “For those who come from that position, they have to be invested in respecting the origins of a culture they have no deep and meaningful relationship with. Otherwise, they could find themselves down the cultural appropriation rabbit hole.”
Some modern tiki bars have reckoned with this complex history. Others, especially those founded by BIPOC mixologists, have reclaimed or inverted the term, melding it with queer-friendly goth culture (in one New York City pop-up) and an overall superlative hospitality experience (in several more).
As such, tiki remains a vibe that people still gravitate toward, despite the complex conversations it can raise.
It’s a duality the Easy Sailor crew has considered. Nearly a century out from its inception, tiki culture now has plenty of its own lore, all of which they feel compelled to nod — and even add — to.
“Tiki is everywhere,” Rozestraten said. “It started off as this Americanized thing, but there are tiki bars now all over the world. There’s that experience that you can get that every single culture is kind of putting their own spin on. Being able to take a bunch of that and kind of incorporate it into one spot will be cool.”
Easy Sailor’s tiki theme extends beyond the bar fare. Rozestraten and the team have scoured Facebook Marketplace looking for tiki artifacts to make the space as authentic to the fantasy as possible. One such item, a five-foot octopus that will cling to the wall, came from Carrollton, Texas and was driven up north by a contact at Jack’s.
“I looked at a lobster trap the other day, and I was like, ‘Can we make a lobster trap work?’” Rozenstaten said. “And then all of a sudden, Maggie, my girlfriend, said, ‘Why don’t you turn it into a light?’ A big chunk of it is just [finding] something that’s close [to tiki] and saying, ‘How do we dress it up and make it work?’”
“Probably a third or half of all the drinks have some kind of fire element,” Herzog added.
They’ll also be largely centered around rum, a spirit that has often taken a back seat to whiskey in the craft cocktail revival. Giovanni San Fillipo, a Western New York-based marketing manager for the Caribbean-based Ten to One Rum, said it’s perfect timing for what he called a “rum renaissance.”
“People are really starting to get used to that rum is not just frozen daiquiris and things you can drink on the beach,” he said. “There are very elevated nuances to rums. So I think that this is something that will go a long way in Rochester.”
It’s hard to argue with that point. After all, what better way to remedy our region’s paltry 165 days of sunlight per year than with a Mai Tai or a flaming Zombie?
Patrick Hosken is CITY’s arts reporter. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
Related Stories
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
