Bay-area artist Kahaka makes some of the best lamps for tiki bars out there. He makes them custom, and uses bamboo and tapa cloth, re-creating some of the best traditional styles, and also coming up with some of his own. His lamps have been hung in professional and home tiki bars around the globe, including the Kahiki Moon in Vermont, the Tabou Tiki Room in Berlin, Kona Club in Oakland and Forbiden Island in Alameda. This lamp is in a volcano shape, with tapa cloth sides, and crosscut bamboo rings for the base, and can be seen hanging at Forbidden Island.

Like the ones mentioned in my post about Orchids of Hawaii lamps, Kahaka’s lamps are very much in line with the lamps I mentioned in my Perfect Tiki Bar: the Lighting article; unlike Orchids of Hawaii, which is long out-of-business, Kahaka’s lamps can be purchased today. Lamps like these go a long way to setting the perfect, exotic mood, and are a must-have item for a good tiki bar. A photo gallery of Kahaka’s work can be seen on Yahoo, and he also has a thread of his creations on Tiki Central. If you’d like to have Kahaka create one of his wonderful lamps for your home or restaurant, you can contact him at jchadgreenwood@aol.com, or by sending him a PM on Tiki Central.

• SWAG TIKI LAMPS [Yahoo! Photos]
• Kahaka’s Tapa Lamps – New Stuff (8/2) [Tiki Central]
• Perfect Tiki Bar: The Lighting [Critiki News]
• Lamps by Orchids of Hawaii [Critiki News]