{"id":402684,"date":"2026-07-17T21:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/402684\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:07:10","slug":"what-youll-see-on-sac-ohanas-annual-tiki-home-bar-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/402684\/","title":{"rendered":"What you\u2019ll see on Sac Ohana\u2019s annual tiki home bar tour."},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Mitchell\u2019s home is unassuming from the front. It could be any suburban house in any community anywhere. But in his backyard, a structure transports you to another world.<\/p>\n

The Ghastly Grotto started its life as a simple CostCo shed, but Mitchell has since turned it into a full-scale tiki bar, with niches and grottos packed with art, figurines and other bric-a-brac, all with a ghoulish bent. It\u2019s campy, kaleidoscopic and more than a little psychedelic.<\/p>\n

Mitchell is a member of Sac Ohana, a social group of local tiki enthusiasts. Members gather for occasional get-togethers at local bars and restaurants to share their love of tiki culture. The culminating event of the year is the annual tiki home bar tour.<\/p>\n

On June 28, dozens of aloha shirt-clad revelers gathered at midtown tiki bar Shipwrecked Paradise Island<\/a> to get a preview of this year\u2019s tour. It\u2019s hotly anticipated, and books up quickly. The tour is free, but in order to keep participants\u2019 homes from being mobbed, it adheres to a strict RSVP system.<\/p>\n

\"Matt Matt Mitchell holds a replica of Madame Leota’s crystal ball from Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” attraction in the tiki room behind his Rancho Cordova home on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

Mitchell is this year\u2019s chair of the home bar tour. Along with events coordinator Nav Singh, he announced the introduction of Sac Tiki Week<\/a>, a series of events leading up to the bar tour. The intent is to open up opportunities for Sac Ohana members to engage in, even if they can\u2019t participate in the tour.<\/p>\n

Events include a screening of Cabali and the Tiki Mug Obsession, a documentary on tiki mug collectors, a home bartender battle and a tiki marketplace and luau.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be the second year of doing the home bartender battle, making cocktails for everyone else in that bar setting. We do it at Jungle Bird, and they\u2019re judged by some pretty spectacular, famous bartenders in the community. It\u2019s a really good time,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s tour is themed Lost Islands of Tiki, and will encompass eight home bars, two of which are new to the program. Mitchell estimates there may be as many as 30 home bars in the area, and so they rotate some in and out each year. The Ghastly Grotto has been on the tour in the past, but is not for 2026.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the tour, and of Sac Ohana in general, is a pervasive sentiment of hospitality. Home bar owners typically have food and drink, both alcoholic and not, available to attendees.<\/p>\n

\"Matt Matt Mitchell showcases his tiki room in the backyard of his Rancho Cordova home on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an all-volunteer, all-donation event, so no one\u2019s making any money. It\u2019s all coming out of everyone\u2019s pockets, so we keep the home bar tour a little smaller,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

Tiki has many manifestations. At its core, it centers on a romanticized, some would say fantasized, vision of South Pacific culture. Many tiki fans cite a visit to the Tiki Room at Disneyland as the genesis of their obsession.<\/p>\n

While its roots go back to Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood in the 1930s, tiki culture blossomed after World War II, when American soldiers came back from the Pacific theater with stories of tropical islands.<\/p>\n

Tiki and mid-century chic are irrevocably intertwined for this reason. Yet every person interprets tiki in their own unique way. Many go deep on the Disney connection. For Mitchell and his wife Angela, it\u2019s an intersection with their obsession with horror movies. Tiki is what you make it.<\/p>\n

\"Matt Matt Mitchell showcases his tiki room in the backyard of his Rancho Cordova home on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. JOS\u00c9 LUIS VILLEGAS jvillegas@sacbee.com <\/p>\n

Sac Tiki Week will run from October 11 to the 18. All events are free to attend, but an \u201cExplorer Package\u201d will be available for sale as of Monday, July 19<\/a>. This comes with early access to RSVP for the tour, as well as a custom mai tai glass and a passport-like book to collect stamps at each home bar.<\/p>\n

Some RSVPs will be reserved for non-purchasers, which become available July 26, plus there\u2019s a waitlist and other opportunities such as giveaways for a seat.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published July 17, 2026 at 7:00 AM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Sean Timberlake<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Sean Timberlake is the food and dining reporter for The Sacramento Bee. He has been writing professionally about food for over 20 years.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Mitchell\u2019s home is unassuming from the front. It could be any suburban house in any community anywhere.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-402684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}