Glitter Gulch Tiki — Restaurant in Las Vegas

Glitter Gulch Tiki - Potential, But Not Quite There Yet

As a tiki connoisseur, I was excited by the prospect of a new tiki bar in my city. I followed the opening of this bar with great interest. It has big competition, what with Golden Tiki, Frankie's, Red Dwarf, and Stray Pirate nearby. Given, it's only been one day since opening, but there are a few problems.

The decor inside is great. Lots of attention to detail. The booths on the wall are individual tiki huts with a theme. The tiki mugs, while not their own yet, were from Tiki Farm, and they make great mugs. And our server was very attentive and pleasant.

However, the drinks need work. "Classic" tiki cocktails should always be available, but their classic were all their take on them, and their zombie leaves a lot to be desired, as does their version of a three dots. A zombie should be strong; theirs was as strong and sweet as a mint julep. Their three dots version seemed "off". And the mugs were so big and full of ice I could barely see any liquid. Luckily, the promo girls were handing out tasters of some rolling stones owned rum, so we doctored it with that to give some, you know, booze.

The teriyaki beef skewers were tasty, but the mango salsa (which they apparently put on most of the dishes) was FAR too spicy by an order of magnitude. The presentation was fancy but half the slab it was served on was empty. It could have used a scoop of rice with a teriyaki drizzle. The kahula pork lunch plate was a mess. It was dry and tasteless, and had no sauce. It came with two scoops of rice with nothing. It was supposed to come with mango salsa but it was left out, which is fine because it would have made it uneatable. A requested side of teriyaki made it palatable.

While our server was great, the bar was SLOW. We were among the first to arrive, yet our drinks took quite a while and the $6 waters didn't arrive until halfway through our meals.

Unfortunately, Glitter Gulch Tiki needs to ripen a bit. All the elements are there for it to be great, but they need to fix stuff before I can be excited for it. I understand most tiki bars take a minute to become successful; even the Golden Tiki was slower at first. However, I also know they had their act mostly together from day one, and they had the passion and the dedication to see it through. Bars like the Stray Pirate started strong because they had pros behind the bar from the jump, and didn’t over extend themselves with their menu, sticking to a few signatures and few classics. Eventually they improved their menu and the place is a hit.

I felt like Glitter Gulch Tiki was disorganized. Maybe they needed more time to do soft opens and stress tests. Their marketing was very weak. If I wasn’t actively watching for this to open, I would have never known it did. On a Saturday, the second day of its existence, there were only 8 people lined up to get in, including us.

Don’t mistake this review for a thumbs down; I want to like this new bar, and I want to see what they do with it in a few months. After I read other reviews from tiki enthusiasts like myself that are positive and I hear they’ve addressed some of the issues we had, then I will happily return and review it again, because it has potential and we need more...

Anyone can leave a Google review so don't trust them all. This isn't a great review but it's very specific to what I like so work with that. I went on opening day and think the issues can be fixed as the place evolves. It's a cocktail bar with tiki theme, not really a "tiki bar" in the traditional sense. When I got there they said it's a 15-20 minute wait Okay. 15 minutes later they let me in and they place was literally half empty? was the wait for 'effect'? I had the fish tacos and a virgin tiki drink. The tacos were very small on a plate like tapas for $20. I wish the menu had a pic. very fancy small portion. The drink had all this long description but tasted like hawaiian punch and a lot of ice in a cool mug. Music was mostly reggae- the modern roots and club type. Not island type and they threw in an exotica tune and a surf tune. I feel for young bartenders that have to be there all the time and don't want to hear real tiki music . So like I said, it's a cocktail bar with tiki theme. They have a nice small stage and I hope they at least experiment with some good live tiki style music. I left after I ate because nothin really going on. Honestly, I went across the street and got a big burger. I had gotten myself in the mood for bar food thinking that this place was owned by Nacho Daddys. Just a little too fancy for me but since it is right off Fremont, I'm sure I'll be back to see it hopefully lower the fanciness level. Get a burger or other bar food. Maybe add a few more decor items to clutter up the place a little. Tiki 'usually' is all about fun, cheesy, plastic flowers and wooden stuff. This is very slick and fancy. Maybe that's cool? maybe tiki is growing so much that there's room for "top shelf". I just felt like i had to behave vs cut up and laugh. Like it's lacking a sense of humor. I felt dumb for wearing a hawaiian shirt. At least they took the build and concept seriously I'm glad it's there and it will have a more 'lived in' feel soon. Btu variety is good and you don't want to just be like other tiki bars in vegas. Tasty but the wonton shell crumbled and had to eat with a fork. The had shot girls going around and waitresses were dressed very skimpy like cocktail bars but nor like hula girl skimpy. I was a little uncomfortable overall. It's decor is unique and well done but a couple large walls were...

My wife and I were excited to try this place since, as locals, we love the other tiki bars in town. We made a reservation that we ended up not needing as there were barely five tables occupied at 7pm on a Friday night when we got there. The place felt very empty. Slow season or sign of trouble? The atmosphere and decor is definitely tiki and still fairly well done, but not as overall interesting as others we’ve been to. The drinks we had were ok, but were not the quality I expected for the price. It seemed they are picking very mainstream, mass-produced rums (Bacardi, Pussers) for their drinks that they can get a deal on from the distributor. I do have to give them props for their tiki mugs though. Those were very fun and creative! Presentation was great. For food, we ordered their Pupu Platter, and that was overall pretty good, but the wings (which make up about half the platter) were pretty hot, even choosing the less spicy sauce option. You wouldn’t expect that from pineapple BBQ sauce, and neither did we! The watermelon on the platter was actually served as a nice relief from the heat. Fortunately the rest of the platter was decent, although pretty expensive for how little food you actually get. For having hardly any tables to attend to, the service was also not great. Our drinks were empty for quite a while after we finished them and finished eating, which led to our decision not to order a second drink. We had been looking forward to our visit to Glitter Gulch since before it opened, but left overall disappointed. I hope to see some improvement from this place as they settle in, but as it stands now, there are better tiki experiences in town that should be higher...