With its thatched roof, vintage tiki torches, and cocktails served in pineapples and coconuts, Fort Lauderdale’s Mai-Kai restaurant has transported visitors to the Pacific Ocean since 1956. They come for the daiquiris and rum punches, of course, but also for an intoxicating escape into a tropical fantasy. A night at Mai-Kai feels like traveling back to an era when the islands of Polynesia and even Florida felt a world away for much of America; Mai-Kai opened before Hawaii was a state and before the iconic movie Where the Boys Are put Fort Lauderdale on the map as the epicenter of spring break mayhem.
But in 2020, water damage and a roof collapse coincided with the pandemic, all of which forced the legendary Polynesian dinner theater and bar to close its doors. Now, after four years of silence and a $20 million renovation, the pounding of drums and sweet sounds of ukuleles have returned.
During Mai-Kai’s closure, Polynesian preservation experts worked alongside Florida amusement park consultants to update the venue and nightly performances, which feature hula and fire dancing. While entertaining diners is central to the Mai-Kai experience, managing partner Bill Fuller says the original owners, brothers Bob and Jack Thornton, revered Polynesian culture and never wanted Mai-Kai to feel like a kitschy roadside attraction. And so Fuller hired a cultural director of Hawaiian and Tahitian ancestry. “You have to hire artists who have this in their family legacy,” Fuller says, “and feel like this is the environment that properly showcases it.”
Mai-Kai is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, meaning Fuller and his crew had the challenge of modernizing the building while meticulously restoring every detail to honor its heritage. The most noticeable addition is the sprawling outdoor bar with its thatched roof and tiki torches, around which the team planted two hundred coconut palms to enhance the tropical aesthetic.
Meanwhile, the menu that caters to the restaurant’s eight themed indoor rooms—each named after a Pacific island destination, including Tonga, New Guinea, and Samoa—has been updated. Diners can still order the classic Pupu Platter, or opt for new Southeast Asian–inspired dishes such as Kona beer–glazed short ribs, pork belly bao buns, or a tuna poke bowl.
But much of Mai-Kai remains just as it was in the 1950s. The Molokai Bar, meant to look like the inside of a sunken ship, still offers more than fifty rum cocktails delivered by waitresses wearing sarongs and bikini tops. Waterfalls still fill the lush tropical gardens alongside tiki sculptures that Bob and Jack Thornton collected during their island travels. Fuller believes the brothers would have been proud of the renovation. “I think we’ve done an amazing job of protecting the legacy of the venue.”
