Saskatoon's first Polynesian restaurant featured live shows in 1981

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Every Thursday we feature an image from the StarPhoenix archives, curated by the City of Saskatoon Archives. Today, we have been seeing dancers at Tiki Tiki, a Polynesian-style restaurant at 701 Cynthia Street, since May 16, 1981. The city's first Polynesian restaurant offered floor shows twice a night. (City of Saskatoon Archives, StarPhoenix Collection S-SP-A15650-19, photo by Glen Berger)

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From the StarPhoenix archives, a review by Art Robinson:

This week we feasted – and I mean feasted – at Saskatoon's only Polynesian restaurant.

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Tiki-Tiki opened a week ago on Thursday on the north side of the city, just off Circle Drive West. We tried it on Monday evening.

We also ordered the most expensive entree on the menu and had to give up about halfway through the meal, leaving about two pounds of food in the fridge the next day.

A sensible and sensible person could have saved at least $10 on groceries and still enjoyed a great and varied dinner in the South Pacific.

But it would have been easy to spend a fortune on drinks. …

All “package” dinners (specialties prepared for just two or more people) come complete with starters and main courses. And are they something else!

We could have easily stopped after the starters. …

We had been told the dance show was supposed to start at 11pm, but actually the Polynesian band arrived around 10:20pm and the dancers followed about 10 minutes later. The band could have played something softer and lighter during the meal. It was difficult to hear each other. And it was impossible to see what was on our plates when the lights were dimmed for the dancers.

The show ended around 11pm and unfortunately we didn't have the opportunity to dance off some of the food as we had hoped. (Maybe they could have even served us another Polynesian drink or two.)

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