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Thirty years later, the Tiki Bar throws its biggest bash yet
Friday, April 30, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DICKSON MERCER
Tiki Bar's 30th annual opening drew a record-breaking crowd to Solomons on April 16.
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Raymond Lankford Jr., 60, has spent his life here. Around the Tiki Bar, he's known as the Mayor of Solomons; and he has now attended all 30 of the open-air bar's annual openings.
Lankford, in fact, once owned the former motel on the site. He received his nickname, meanwhile, from John Taylor, who essentially founded the business with his wife Kathy and later sold it, in 2005, to Anthony Clarke and Pat Donovan, businessmen from St. Mary's County. The new owners have since developed a tiki village, as in sandy roadside shops and slices of the Bahamas along the driveway which stretches from Charles Street to the back of the property.
Clarke and Donovan have decorated the site with hundreds of Polynesian-style wood carvings, poles (some rise from the bar counter to the ceiling) and statues made by California-based Polynesian pop artist Bosko Hrnjak. They even commissioned artists to create several stone statues based on the giant monolithic carvings of human figures that were left behind at Easter Island.
All the time, though, people ask the Mayor of Solomons how all this happened: They want to know how the Tiki Bar's annual April opening could grow from a small group occupying a dozen chairs to a spectacle created by an estimated 20,000 people from Southern Maryland and well beyond.
"I have no clue," he says. All he knows is that it grew a little bit every year — until it just happened.
Every year, the people come here from Southern Maryland and beyond — by car, by boat, on foot. Every year, every inch of legal drinking space will be filled with people shoulder-to-shoulder, the lines for drinks so thick it will make sense to join the end of one just minutes after making it to the front. They come in jeans, shorts, ridiculous T-shirts, flapping hats, skimpy tops, white pants, beachwear.
Controversies notwithstanding, it's a party that makes a collective statement: Solomons Island — a destination spot, where the Patuxent River flows out to the Chesapeake Bay — is definitely back in business. People exhale. October has gone, April has come.
The Tiki Bar's 30th annual opening, held April 16, is said to be the most well-attended yet.
"The winter time, it's a ghost town and nothing's going on," says Mike Theesen, the owner of Grill Sergeant BBQ, about Solomons. "Then it turns around and goes boom."
Opening day
Not long before noon, the parking lots lining Solomons Island Road are barren. A couple pushes a stroller on the boardwalk. It's sunny, warm. Music drifts out of Catamaran's Restaurant and cuts through the breeze.
Where the road curves around a bend and rolls slightly downhill to the featured attraction, volunteers and businesses and entrepreneurs prepare for what's to come. The former, for instance, arrange tables in the front yard of Saint Peters Episcopal Church, a temporary vendor of bottled water and "holy hot dogs" to benefit a Habitat for Humanity project. Hugh Davies tells a reporter they pulled in about $1,000 last year, staying open until 10 p.m. "It gets very interesting as the evening goes on," he adds, flashing a grin.
It's but the second weekend of business for Lotus Kitchen, formally Kim's Key Lime Pie. Co-owner Amanda Comer, who also runs the nearby Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast, says she plans to limit the day's menu to "fun grub" like pizzas and Jamaican hot pockets.
Next up, Huntingtown's Bill Elliott sips a can of beer with a buddy as the hour draws closer to noon, the precise hour the Tiki Bar will let people in. His makeshift stand displays an assortment of beads. Some bear hearts. Others have skulls or dolphins. Others still are unmentionable, though they do sell quite well.
Elliott, an equipment operator, sells the beads for about $7, which is also the price of Tiki Bar's famous mai tai. He, too, earned about 1,000 bucks last year. (He also had a darn good time.)
Beads can also be bought from representatives of Southern Maryland Pink Hooters, a group in training for the soon-to-come Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Washington, D.C.
As the Tiki Bar comes into view, various signs issued by the Calvert County Sheriff's Office urge visitors not to drink publicly — or at least not outside the lines. Throughout the opening, police patrol the area on foot, in cruisers and a special operations boat. This year, they've unveiled a mobile command vehicle, which replaces a school bus and features satellite communications and surveillance equipment.
By the end of the weekend, four people will be arrested for disorderly conduct, four for drugs, one for a concealed weapon and 14 for driving under the influence (in spite of taxi and designated driver programs). There will be one stabbing off the site.
The Tiki Bar's general manager, Joe Kurley, a former Montessori teacher affectionately and widely known as "Tiki Joe," will say the arrest count was down from recent years. (The disorderly conduct count was 23 in 2009.)
Yellow caution tape runs down the center of Charles Street, which is further divided by orange barricades. Smoke rises from two portable smokers outside the Grill Sergeant, Tiki Bar's neighbor.
Boats pull up to the dock, which connects to the parking lot across the street from the bar. For now, there's a short line at security tents, where IDs are checked and hands are stamped and certain rules are posted. (As it happens, neither nudity nor baggy clothing is allowed.)
At exactly noon, the Tiki Bar's first visitors of the year pass through the tent and order drinks at the bar, which is staffed by about half a dozen bartenders, all female. At 12:06, the first empty plastic cup hits the bar. Orange bits fill the squeezer. The police boat eases into position.
The season starts with Jimmy Buffett tunes. Palm fronds line the bar's ceiling from which hang chandeliers of beads. The conk shells offer matches.
Known for its strong island drinks, the Tiki Bar's signature concoction is its mai tai, a strong mix of fruit and lots of rum which is poured in a plastic cup over ice and topped with a cherry. In terms of popularity, though, the kokomo — a Beach Boys-inspired drink flavored with rum and vanilla liqueur — is a close second, while the orange crush, a freshly squeezed screwdriver, is another popular pick. Considering the amount of liquor in these drinks, the $7 price tag seems fair, not to mention a good idea. These are not drinks to keep a tight grip on, and most Tiki Bar opening day veterans will tell you it's best to have one, maybe two, and switch to beer or water.
Laurie Menser, 31, a St. Mary's College graduate who lives in Montgomery County, sports a sash stating her bid for Mayor of Tiki Town. She's with friends and family on her birthday and recalls how a decade ago she might have had her first drink here. The Roman numeral for two, her mai tai tab, is stained on her hand. "Four is the magic number," she says.
The drinks are premixed, placed in plastic jugs. This year, though, the mixing job was outsourced, thus allowing the staff to nix the routine of mixing drinks for days beforehand. Either way, such an event requires all hands on deck, and the staff will typically work from noon until the police herd the last folks off the island.
These days, the bar seats about 100. Groups also form packs along the railing as others sit, beneath the sun, on the bench near the road or the barricade. The motorcycles rumble. A local attorney passes out lighters decorated with contact information.
The tiki village, packed by 3 p.m., would only get more packed.
A steel drum band plays for hours. The palm trees flap lazily. Groups claim tables covered by umbrellas on slabs of faux beach. They sit back easy and chat or smoke cigars or sip drinks. There are mai tai and kokomo stands. The back of the lot has about two dozen portable toilets.
The opening brings a crowd of all ages, and bikers, too. "I just like the relaxed atmosphere — people getting together, having a nice time," says Waldorf's Uhry Thomas, who met up with friends in Virginia and biked to the site from there. Owings' Mark Hunter, who says he arrived on a hot rod bike, rides to Solomons frequently and simply took advantage of a day off from work.
People place their drinks on a table and sit down for free caricatures. Circles form around a man on stilts.
In front of The Grill Sergeant, Robert Hesse, the head chef at Catamarans Restaurant who is known for his appearances on the television show, "Hell's Kitchen," poses for photos with fans. In the marina, boats provide yet another partying spot.
At 4 p.m., the staff unveils its special surprises. The tiki king, Gorden Spalding, on a throne, and the tiki queen, Diane Rowe, are spotted on a flower-covered barge floating toward the dock. They are joined by men in island shirts and dreadlock wigs who pretend to paddle the motor-powered vessel with long poles.
Spalding, a building inspector, wears a leopard kilt, dark tank top, sash and crown. Rowe, a hygienist, is dressed in a bikini and leopard skirt, and she carries a basket of rose petals.
They hit land and are swept away into a carriage led by Clydesdale horses for a tour of the island. People line the streets as they pass, calling out for or throwing beads.
The bars and restaurants are packed all the way up to Ruddy Duck Brewery on Dowell Road. There are few if any parking spots, so newcomers to the scene are leaving their cars in the shopping center lots along Route 4 and walking to the Tiki Bar from there.
Their tour complete, the king and queen exit the carriage and are escorted to the roof. The queen drops petals everywhere she goes.
On the roof, the king raises his drink and scepter as spectators raise their arms and wail. There are speeches, and local singer-songwriter Ben Connelly delivers his original trop-blues dedication to the house mai tai. And though you can't hear anything due to noise and faulty speakers, the speeches are about the arrival of summer, the beginning of a new season.
Count Spalding, a Solomons resident attending his 16th opening, among the many who are unsure how it came to be that Solomons now hosts Mardi Gras for a day.
Six days after the opening, as things at the Tiki Bar return to their usual hectic yet relaxed weekday pace, he shows a reporter his former costume for the Tiki Bar's annual Halloween party, which sometimes turns out to be the last event of the year. The staff allows him to leave it in a storage room.
It's some sort of tiki character made from two trash cans, foam, paint and paper towels and with motorcycle battery-powered lights. A few times each summer he will hoist it on his shoulders purely for the sake of entertaining the night's guests.
When the Tiki Bar closes in October, Spalding and Rowe lie low; think of it like hibernation. When it reopens, though, they put on their crowns and ready their spirits for fun.
"It was a nasty, cold winter," the king says in recollection of this year's opening. "Everyone was chomping at the bit to have a good time."
Tiki openings
Crooked I Sports Bar and Grill — The tiki bar, 8323 Bayside Road, Chesapeake Beach, opened April 23. Bands play on Saturday nights. Call 301-855-2323.
Gilligan's Pier — The tiki bar, 11535 Popes Creek Road, Newburg, is open but the grand opening will be held May 17. Call 301-259-4514. Port Tobacco Restaurant & Tiki Bar — The restaurant and bar, 7478 Shirley Blvd., Port Tobacco, will reopen April 30. Call 301-392-0007.
Sea Breeze — The tiki bar, 27130 S. Sandgates Road, Mechanicsville, opened April 23. Bands play on Fridays and Saturdays from 8 p.m.-midnight. Call 301-373-5217. Tiki Bar on Solomons Island — The open-air bar, 85 Charles St., Solomons, will remain open through Halloween. Call 410-326-4075.
Vera's White Sands Beach Club — Vera's, White Sands Drive, Lusby, has been open since March. Bands play Friday through Sunday. Call 410-586-1182.
