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New Bar From Horsefeather Team Will Put a Different Spin on Tiki

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Last Rites is opening with a moodier vibe in Duboce Triangle

Last Rites

The team behind Divisadero cocktail bar Horsefeather will take a unique new approach to the classic tiki bar — a fantasy of tropical paradise basically invented at Bay Area establishments like The Tonga Room and Trader Vics — with a new bar called Last Rites. True to that ominous name, Last Rites will present a darker, moodier vision of tiki when it opens as soon as next month at 718 14th Street.

Stepping inside Last Rites (in the former Residence space) will feel a little like crash-landing on tropical island — an effect brought home by a back bar fashioned from an actual airplane fuselage. Designer James Lagoc (Nopa, Bi-Rite, Horsefeather) and fabricator Brian Sullivan aim to create what the team is calling a “Polynesian Noir” aesthetic, decorating the bar with dense faux foliage and forbidding skulls.

Caleb Pershan

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To found Horsefeather in 2016, partners Justin Lew and Ian Scalzo spun off from the Future Bars group, which runs nine Bay Area watering holes including Bourbon & Branch, Tradition, and its own new-school tiki den, Pagan Idol. Lew and Scalzo’s second bar will expand on aspects of their first, like Horsefeather’s emphasis on its own wine-based syrups and its obsessive attention to detail (the Divisadero bar is loaded with craftsman design flourishes).

To drink, Last Rites will serve tiki-inspired cocktails like a Cadmael (a refreshing beer cocktail with house made tepache, orange juice, bourbon, lemon sugar, and kolsch), a Tiger Moth Grog (St. Lucia Bounty dark rum, Mount Gay black barrel rum, Real McCoy 5 year rum, grapefruit, lime, spiced matte honey syrup, angostura bitters, allspice dram), and — in an Indiana Jones reference — Kali MA’s Doom (gin, pisco, melon/sauvignon blanc syrup, grapefruit, lime, vanilla cream, and toasted marshmallow). Departing from tiki tradition, those won’t be served in fancy tiki mugs: Instead, expect glassware carved from bottles, committing to the fantasy of found objects on a desert island.

Stay tuned for more details as Last Rites approaches next month.

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Horsefeather

528 Divisadero Street, , CA 94117 (415) 817-1939 Visit Website