This story is part of our October 2025 issue. To read the print version, click here.

The first sight through the door is something like an aquatic gargoyle with long fingers, smiling fangs and the scaly tail of a mercreature from the lowest depths. This sculpture, stretching five feet from its head to rear fins, is entombed in glass across from the three-dimensional rendering of a pirate ship that covers an entire wall of Davis’ most-talked about tiki bar. 

When Nate and Melissa Yungvanitsait opened Shipwrecked Tiki Bar in 2023, they were sharing a fable they’d been gradually inventing. It’s the yarn of an ill-fated South Seas buccaneer whose voyages and misadventures ended with an upbeat, rags-to-riches finale. But rather than map out this tale by writing a book or blog, the couple started telling it through architecture, interior design and an array of antiques and hand-crafted trinkets they carefully positioned throughout their bar.

Now, people coming into the half-hidden spot along G Street can try to intuit the Yungvanitsaits’ narrative by dwelling on the bar’s arrangement of underwater illusions, massive Kraken tentacles, Caribbean jail cells and treasure rooms full of wonders.   

Having struck gold, the Yungvanitsaits then created a spin-off chapter to the same story with a tiki bar in Midtown Sacramento, this one called Shipwrecked Paradise Island, which opened in October 2024. Their bars are part of a tide that has been rising for the better part of a decade.

Tiki bars first gained a foothold on the West Coast in the 1930s, popularizing environments filled with rum cocktails and Polynesian-themed collectables in hotspots like Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood and Trad’r Sam in San Francisco.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, these portals of escapism were “a perfect fit for the economically troubled era” during the Great Depression and then, after World War II, became mirrored funhouses of false memories and complicated nostalgia for veterans who’d fought in the Pacific Theater. Sacramento had a signature tiki-themed restaurant called Coral Reef between 1949 and 1994, and then the genre was kicked back to life with the arrival of Jungle Bird bar in 2016. 

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The Yungvanitsaits and other Capital Region tiki bar owners are enjoying the public’s reaction to their version of the trend. “If you’re watching people come through the front door for the first time, you can read their lips, and you’ll usually see ‘Wow,’” Nate muses. “When you walk in and shut the door, we want you to be in a totally different world.”

A captain crashes into fate and curses 

The bar’s front area references the sandbar where Captain Bob ran aground, while its drink-mixing spot is a bridgeway to the watery, shark-filled realm from which the Kraken emerged. Beyond those spaces is a series of dark jail cells that patrons can drink inside of, all alluding to the pirate’s fate that befell Bob after surviving the Kraken. Perhaps the bar’s most intricate spectacle is its shimmering treasure room that visitors can peer into. 

“Captain Bob eventually became rich when he got out of jail,” Nate reveals.    

It wasn’t long before the Yungvanitsaits were imagining a different chapter of the Bad Luck Bob story for their Sacramento watering hole. This one would encapsulate Bob’s debacle of running aground on a reef ahead of a shadowy rain forest and ancient ruins. The location’s features include a massive anaconda statue constricting above its circular bar and open kitchen, while carved elephants, tigers and Venus flytraps keep their eyes on patrons.   

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Nate, who grew up in Bangkok, Thailand, returned to that country to get most of the decorations for both Shipwrecked spaces. The intriguing pieces of shell fish art came from markets in Thailand’s beach cities, while the large fish and animal statues were made in the north of the country, which is renowned for its wood-carving. 

When it comes to cocktails, the Yungvanitsaits devised a menu that pairs experimentation with classics. “A lot of the drinks are traditional tiki drinks,” Nate says. “Our 1945 Mai Tai is a staple of tiki bars. We’ve chosen to go with the higher quality rum on that. We actually put four different kinds of rumn into 1945 Mai Tai, trying to mimic the original recipe that was created back then.” 

Hawthorne’s sweltering hole of secrets 

His creative project, influenced by years of being an art dealer associated with the Walt Disney Company, is officially launching this month as a private events venue called Hawthorne’s Hideout. Similar to Shipwrecked, Hawthorn’s Hideout offers an experience akin to walking through a dusty novel brought to life by sounds, lights and high-caliber cocktails.

“I always loved tiki, but I’ve also always loved mountaineering, which is something I personally do, so I created this fictional character who’s traveled all over the world and done these amazing things,” Carlson explains. 

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By October, he was ready to start building the hideout in a room attached to his underground art vault below Stage Nine. He wanted the space to be highly interactive — and have plenty of surprises. Carlson got help on that front from Garner Holt Productions, a company renowned for its work at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. The fun essence of a theme-park is definitely reflected in the room’s animatronic totem spirits, Tika and Magma, which speak to visitors while they’re drinking. 

In the backstory Carlson drew up, Tika and Magma were Elias Hawthorne’s greatest discoveries.   

Working with Disney creatives is nothing new for Carlson. He’s been a serious art dealer for Disney-connected painters and animators for years now. He notes that his proximity to Disney did influence a few elements of Hawthorne’s Hideout.  

“When I was in college, I did an internship with Disney, so that’s part of understanding storytelling and attention to detail,” Carlson recalls. “Writing Hawthorne’s story gave us a guiding light. … I think (the background with Disney) helped me with a framework for how to approach it.”

When guests have a party or event in the hideout, a host — who is an actor — leads them through some dinner theater-style fun as they enjoy several specially devised tiki cocktails and nibble on a host of culinary dishes. 

Chelsea Evans, the Downtown Partnership’s district manager for the Old Sacramento Waterfront, thinks what Carlson has come up with equals a valuable new attraction. “Stage Nine’s new Hawthorne’s Hideout delivers a magically immersive adventure underneath the cobblestones,” Evans tells Comstock’s, adding that it is “yet another interactive offering to the historic neighborhood’s ever-evolving array of unique experiences.”

From Carlson’s perspective, the thrill of the room comes from unearthing all its concealed Easter eggs and mini legends embedded in its cluttered walls. “We literally tried to cover every square inch of this place with little, hidden artifacts and props and touches of the theme,” Carlson stresses. “One of our docents, Cornelius or Albert, will help you explore the room through activities and mayhem. Once the door closes, it’s your private space and you’re removed from whatever was going on in your day — you can be whisked away.” 

Correction Oct. 21, 2025: A previous version of this article misstated a business name. It is Hawthorne’s Hideout, not Hawthorn’s Hideaway.

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