It’s here! North Shore Lagoon, the tiki bar and swimming pool found within McMenamins new Anderson School complex, which opened yesterday. (Critiki News had a preview not long ago.) A friend who was there for the opening had good things to say:

“Great decor and lighting. Real exotica was playing, and my Mai Tai was excellent. A-“

Anderson School is in Bothell, just north of Seattle. (Your Critiki proprietor, Humuhumu, lived in Bothell when she was 3-5 years old, and went to kindergarten there. MISTY MEADOWS REPRESENT!) The former junior high school is now a hotel, brewery, movie theater, and a bunch of restaurants and bars. The swimming pool is ringed with tropical plants, and is open to the public in two-hour chunks during the day, and is open to hotel guests only at the very beginning and end of the day.

Yes, okay, that’s all very nice… but let’s talk about the tiki bar, right?

The bar sits high up, overlooking the swimming pool. The drink menu includes tropical drinks (including classics like the Zombie, Mai Tai and Suffering Bastard), and there is a selection of over 80 rums. It is clad in bamboo and thatch, and the inside features a peaked roof with bamboo beams, lots of distressed wood and driftwood, and tiki lamps aplenty (including pufferfish and an unusual lamp made to look like a brugmansia bloom… brugmansias together with the toxins from pufferfish are believed by some to be the keys to making the original human zombies from Haitian folklore).

Thanks to Critiki member Selector Lopaka, Critiki already has 15 images; go see them at the new Critiki listing for North Shore Lagoon in Bothell and share your own pictures, ratings, and impressions!

• North Shore Lagoon in Bothell [Critiki]
• Preview of the North Shore Lagoon at McMenamins Anderson School [Critiki News]