The Zombie Village — Restaurant in San Francisco

I've been wanting to go here for a while, but haven't been able to get here on previous trips. Despite all the travel madness in the airports in advance of the holiday weekend, Zombie Village was mellow - a good solid number of other customers, but not a wall-to-wall madhouse. So I was able to sit at the bar and have some nice chats about tiki drinks, bars, and even houseplants with the three tikitenders on shift. I definitely saw evidence of Oceanic Arts' influence and I think even some of their specific pieces in the decor!

They've pared down their menu from an original start with 50 (!) drinks to a little more than a dozen winners. Some classic crowd-pleasers and some house specialties. My first drink was the Village Punch, which came garnished with a gardenia and just took the complementary blend of rums, spice, and juices to a heavenly level.

My second choice was the Village Zombie, an interesting riff on a classic (simplified) zombie. It came garnished with a spiced pineapple ball on one of their spear swizzles, which was a nice addition, not too spicy, but smart to make it an optional choice for the drinker rather than an immersive hot pepper experience.

Overall well worth the time to come out and I recommend it to anyone looking for a fun tiki experience in...

Let me start off by saying that this bar is absolutely beautiful!! The drinks were yummy and fun too, I even had one (coco pandan) with a popsicle garnish. The reason I took off two stars is because I was there Thursday evening and the door guy was being kinda (jokingly maybe?) rude about my California ID being “fake,” telling me I look too young, etc. I showed him my passport card because I wasn’t wearing any makeup in my ID, so maybe he really didn’t believe that it was real/mine.. two forms of if with my name a birthdate, laughed it off while he continued making jokes at me and walked inside. Had a few drinks and later that evening met a gorgeous woman in her 30s that randomly started telling me the story of how she “almost didn’t get let in” by the doorman as well, and that he said she looked underage.. I just honestly hope he doesn’t make it a habit to harass women he thinks are pretty; by acting like they can’t come in and making them stand outside talking to him for 5+ minutes when there is no line.. purely as a guise to talk to them. It’s weird and extremely unprofessional as a security guard/doorman. The two bartenders were great but service was extremely slow for the amount of people trying to get drinks. They needed at least one more...

So I originally came here when it was the whiskey bar, Tradition. You can still feel much of the same layout as before but they did a phenomenal job of turning it into a full on Tiki joint. Tbh, it was much needed. The whiskey thing is stale with B&B around the corner and my date was really hyped on the whole theme of Zombie.

The drinks were amazing, a little pricey but expected. Everything on the menu is $12-16 so don't pick up the tab of a dozen people unless its on the company card but it you want to transport yourself out of the TL for a couple hours, this is the spot. Unless you are a true Tikifile as they call them, you will find some great renditions of their own and few traditional drinks you would expect.

Side note to those looking to impress a date, start up the hill at the Big 4 for an old school scotch on the rocks, mozy down the hill for a refresher at Pacific Cocktail Haven, go back to the 20's at Bourbon and Branch/The Library, and finish up at Zombie Village. And if you really want to get weird there are a few places in the TL but nothing I would suggest here. There's plenty of places to eat in between but its an awesome booze tour of SF that is all with 5 or 6 blocks and you'll never have to...