Dongcheng Cocktail Favorite Tiki Bungalow to Get an Ownership Shake-Up

Dongcheng's favorite sunny hideaway for potent cocktails, Tiki Bungalow and Bar, announced this afternoon that they will be undergoing a change in ownership starting as of next week.

The news, which came via a circulated WeChat post from the owners, describes how this will be their final week overseeing the bar, adding, "We all have different obligations and are finding it increasingly difficult to spend time running the bar. We’ve had several offers and decided it’s time to accept one."

Lovers of Tiki, renowned for its well-crafted, reasonably priced, and mind-(and leg)-melting cocktails will find some consolidation in the fact that the new owner, Di Wei Hung, has an establishment already under his belt: Hide Bar near Chaoyang Joy City and another branch in Wangjing.

The owners finish the post by expressing their gratitude for those who visited over the years, saying: "Thanks for all the great times and support that have made The Tiki Bungalow a popular and award-winning bar! We wish the new owner great success in the future."

First opening in the spring of 2015 in a small space on Dongsi Jiutiao, Tiki began as a one-man operation by Phil Tory, a cocktail lover with a penchant for loud tropical shirts and who at the time joked to me that his girlfriend was fed up with all the stray bottles filling up the house. Spotting a gap in the market for tiki drinks, made famous by the Hollywood bar Don the Beachcomber in the 1930s, Tory decided to box up his love for mixology and go professional, immediately capturing an audience thanks to his sweet yet dangerous tiki classics.

In order to accommodate that blossoming fanbase, Tory moved from his original space shortly afterward along with new partners Oliver Davies and Peter Carey, settling into Dongsi Beisantiao. From there, things continued to grow, with the team adding an additional "Iguana Room" to the proceedings in March of last year but were quickly met with bad news when a nearby fire forced the bar's closure only one month later.

Luckily, with a little help from their neighbors Peiping Machine, the crew found a new location nestled away across from that brewery and only a stone's throw down the road from their closed bar, which is where they've been since.

In order to celebrate the changeover and commiserate the departure of the bar's current management, happy hour prices will run all night, every night this week and culminate in a "Bungalow Blowout" on Friday and Saturday whereby Carey and Davies will be on hand to bid well-wishers farewell with free shots and some final hazy memories of their time in charge.

Get the scoop on Beijing's latest openings and closings, right here.

Images courtesy of Tiki Bungalow, Tracy Wang