Tiki Sunsets

Tiki Trouble: Lani Kai Space Is on the Market [Update: No It Isn’t?]

This could be yours?
This could be yours? Photo: Sam Dangremond

Holy Navy Grog: An online listing seems to match the description of Lani Kai, right down to the fireplace and double liquor license. We’re just going to go out on a limb and posit that the almost-two-year-old bi-level cocktail spot on Broome Street, previously the home of Sam Mason’s Tailor, is part of Soho we’ll call the Watts Peninsula, an area bounded by Thompson Street, Watts, and Sixth Avenue. As such, it’s a place of many unexplained and unexplored mysteries, and you owe it to yourself and cocktail culture in general to head over there tonight and trade notes over Bermuda Triangles (cachaça, coconut, kalamansi, and lychee juice: $13).

Update 1: Julie Reiner writes in to say that the listing is most definitely not Lani Kani, despite the similarities: “My business partner is in real estate. I don’t know if someone saw his name on a building or space in our neighborhood.. and drew their own conclusions? I just know that it is not Lani Kai.” Okay then. It’s a correction we’re happy to make — we really like the place! Sounds as though the listing’s similarities are the real unexplained phenomena of the Watts Peninsula.

Update 2: It’s closing on September 19.

Tiki Trouble: Lani Kai Space Is on the Market [Update: No It Isn’t?]