Hilton Head's legendary Tiki Hut bar gets a facelift (2024)

HILTON HEAD ISLAND— An island staple has returned from a brief hiatus.

The Tiki Hut first slung beach libations in 1977, bringing a taste of Polynesia to the Lowcountry. Tourists and locals deprived of frozen drinks for seven months found on the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend that the rum began flowing by Coligny Beach again, this time with 100 more seats, brunch service, new firepits, and more.

The popular bar's remodeling was part of a $13 million renovation to the Beach House Hilton Head resort.

At a May 30 event celebrating the bar's makeover, days after the actual reopening, beachcombers convened on a blue bird Thursday afternoon. Classic rock covers overtook the nearby Atlantic tides.

Laureen Butler and Judith Lupo sat at the bar, watching alcohols and juices turn into elixirs. The two tequila-drinking sexagenarians drove to South Carolina from Florida.

Lupo, still sporting her New Jersey accent despite her relocation to the sunshine state, has been visiting Hilton Head since 1983. She flipped through decades of memories like a Sin City rolodex, carefully selecting the moments she wanted to share with The Post and Courier, filing away raunchier pieces of her past.

"Let me tell you something. In the '80s it was a very different place. The whole island was different. It was wild," Lupo said, after telling a story about bringing her year-old grandson to the bar with her family.

Lupo and Butler were imbibing in the early afternoon. They were careful to not over indulge, noting that they biked to the bar, and had been partying throughout the week.

It was early stages of Tiki-Thon, where nine local barkeeps made drinks for an hour each. The highest grossing shift chose the charity to devote the proceeds, with contributions from the RBC and the hotel, purchased by New York City-based real estate investment firm EOS Investors in March 2022.

Under an umbrella nearby, Leo Lewis was on his third drink. Trying to keep a buzz from becoming a boondoggle, this one he ordered without the sauce. It was cause for celebration for Lewis. It was his 46th birthday.

Lewis and his family were visiting from Ohio. Sitting in a blue sun shirt and a bucket hat, Lewis was an unlikely expert in the arts of Southeast Asian co*cktails. Tiki drinks became Lewis and his wife Lauren's pandemic hobby.

"Other people were buying toilet paper. We were buying rum," he said.

Tiki Hut met his high level of scrutiny. This connoisseur was a happy customer.

Sitting at a beach table shirtless with his two friends, Louis Enrico Marino III was enjoying his first time in the South, even though a somber event brought him to the area.

Marino, a Marine from North Hollywood, was visiting South Carolina to attend his friend's funeral. The two served together in Japan. Spending time in the Lowcountry taught Marino about his friend. The stories his buddy would tell turned from visualizations to reality. His friend's mannerisms pronounced in his high school pals.

Marino himself is full of Marine machismo and California cool. He spoke about a walk he took on the Spanish Moss trail. Film photography is a personal hobby. He was excited to get pictures developed when he returned home.

Marino enjoys nothing more than being a local, he said, something he struggled to find respectively in Japan and Los Angeles because of the language barrier and the city sprawl.

Remembering why The Post and Courier approached him, he asked, "When are you going to ask me how the drinks are from the Tiki Bar?"

This reporter obliged.

"It's all right. Could have been a little stiffer," he said.

Jessica Wadecontributed to this report.