Save the Tonga Room Happy Hour from the Bucket List

Wednesdays - Fridays
5PM - 7PM
Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St. (@ California)

The Fairmont Hotel's original tiki bar, the Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar, that of the chunky cheese cubes and greasy egg rolls alongside silly Scorpion bowls for Happy Hour, is an endangered species. Reports of its demise are conflicting. Some say it meets the criteria for historical preservation. Others interpret this to mean that the contents of the Tiki Room -- the tikis, the straw, the hurricane lamps and the infamous stage that floats a house band playing covers of "Caribbean Queen" into the middle of a pool -- only to be disrupted by real-live fake indoor thunderstorm -- simply need to be safely moved off-site. Or worse, to a new location.

The Fairmont Hotel wants to modernize. And who can blame them really? The Tonga Room is old (built in 1945) and let's face it, as much as we love the Tonga Room, do we really consume enough coconut prawns and Zombies there per annum to steady its bottom line? Aren't you drinking at Lime and grooving on their deviled eggs more than you care to admit?

But we digress. Save the Tonga Room from being a trendy Bucket List thing to do before it dies and patronize it regularly. Do not wait for your cousins from Dubuque to visit. Go there tonight as a local, or any Wednesday, Thursday or Friday for the Happy Hour from 5 to 7 PM. Visit the Tonga Room Wednesdays through Sundays after 8 PM and request the band play the "Pina Colada Song". Seriously. It is your civic duty.