The Mahi Mahi Room is my tiki bar themed “man cave” located just north of Kingaroy, Qld, Australia.
I often get asked “Hey Cap’n, why build a tiki themed bar in your shed?” Well that’s a good question. And I usually answer that with “Well why the hell not?”
These days a lot of guys have some version of a “man cave” whether it be room in their house, a corner of their garage or, like me, the WHOLE garage! We all need some sort of place to escape from the grind of our daily lives and The Mahi Mahi Room is my “little” oasis where I can recharge my batteries.
Those that have known me for a while understand I love to entertain and host as much as I love spending time with friends having a few drinks. At the end of the week I love to unwind with a quiet drink but the pubs have become too expensive. That, and as I get older I’ve found I just don’t enjoy the pub scene as much as I used to.
Several years ago I decided I wanted to build a bar in the shed but as I started to plan I was stuck with what sort of theme I wanted. After a little searching on the internet I fell in love with the “tiki bar” style of man cave. I was instantly hooked. I’ve always loved the beach and as a theme it’s easy to dress for. Plus I’m a notoriously lazy traveller so now I can go to the “beach” every day without the hassles.
One of the things about “tiki” is that a tiki bar is never finished. I’ve still got so much to do and so many plans so it’s a great hobby that’s sure to keep me amused for years to come. Hey, some people collect stamps, I’ve chosen to build a tiki bar.
I also live a few minutes out of town which means I can afford to have a larger than usual shed, so why not build a full blown man cave? By spending about as much as I would on a decent holiday, I now have somewhere I can use to unwind and entertain friends every single weekend. Whether it’s a few quiet Mai Tai’s at the bar, a friendly game of pool or even a game of cards while we watch the footy there’s plenty for everyone to enjoy at The Mahi Mahi Room.
And of course there’s plenty of music to keep everyone amused. I mean, what good is a bar and a few drinks without some rockin’ tunes, right? Music is a very important part of the entertaining dynamic but one of the things that annoys me is every time I go to a party or get together at someone’s place there are issues with the music. What do I mean by that? Well, either there are one or two “jukebox nazis” or the host plays music that they like with no consideration for their guests.
When I built the Mahi Mahi Room I wanted to make sure that I didn’t have those problems so I built a touch-screen jukebox into the bar allowing guests to pick the music. But to make sure any jukebox nazis didn’t hijack it I made sure that the queue couldn’t have more than a few songs from a single artist at any given time as well as making the queue shuffle after each song has played. This way, whether there was 1 or 100 songs in the queue, guests could have their song play next or not for several hours making it fair for all. I’ve had some incredibly positive feedback to this setup from people who have had similar issues with the music at parties in the past.
I spent a long time and plenty of money to accumulate a very large quantity of songs. Most of the music is some form of rock, especially Aussie stuff, but there is plenty of variety to keep anyone who turns up happy. Just don’t expect much (if any) Justin Beiber or Katy Perry type stuff and you’ll be right. I actually have an open challenge that goes something like “if you can’t find an hour’s worth of music that you like on the jukebox…then you don’t like music”.
I’ll be showcasing plenty of my favourite songs and artists from the jukebox here on the blog so take your time and enjoy the tunes. Hopefully you get some enjoyment out of them and even find some new stuff whilst you put up with me dribbling on about all sorts of other garbage
