Trad'r Sam Dive Bar / Tiki Bar

The Richmond, San Francisco –

It may get cold and damp on the city’s west side, especially way out in outer Richmond, but it always smells like sun-drenched pineapples and rum at Trad’r Sam, a tiki-themed dive that’s been serving up big bowls of sugary sweet drinks to a party-happy young crowd since the 1930s.

Surfboards, palm fronds, life preservers, and a stuffed parrot form the backdrop for the round bar that acts as focal point in the single-room venue, while bamboo booths provide ample space for the working-class locals who drop in during the week to catch a game or land a few summer cocktails.

Come the weekend – which apparently starts on Thursday in the tiki universe – the bar is packed to the gills with everyone from frat boys and newly minted twenty-one-year-olds to unapologetic cougars hell bent on guzzling slushies until they hit the sticky floor.

Folks who have wandered in out of the cold are quickly inducted into the rum lover’s scene through heavy-handed favorites like the Scorpion Bowl or the Zombie, though the loud whir of blenders is easily drowned out by the clamorous conversation and the focus on flirting.

Trad’r Sam’s fun-loving patrons know full well they’ll be feeling it in the morning, yet like a school of sand crabs, they keep crawling back, thirsty for more.