The Polynesian

The Polynesian opened in 2018 on the second floor of the Pod Times Square hotel at 400 West 42nd Street, a Major Food Group project that put tiki veteran Brian Miller behind the program. It was a serious bar dressed as a fun one. The menu listed sixteen original cocktails and three large-format drinks, built on a rum collection that ranged across the Caribbean and beyond, with a terrace bar and an indoor bar splitting a room that held around 200 guests.

This was the rare tiki bar that the cocktail world took seriously and the after-theater crowd actually found. The Michelin Guide covered its opening, and PUNCH ran a full review of Miller's ambition. The bar has since closed, so this page is a record rather than a recommendation. For a living tiki-leaning rum list, head to the rest of New York's cocktail rooms instead.

The Polynesian read as opulent rather than kitsch. It accommodated roughly 200 guests split between an indoor space and an outdoor terrace, each with its own full-sized bar, which let the room flex from a packed weekend scene to a quieter terrace drink in warm weather. The decor leaned into mid-century Polynesian fantasy without tipping into theme-park territory.

The location did a lot of work. Sitting above the Pod Times Square on West 42nd Street, it pulled in pre- and post-theater drinkers who would never have trekked to a basement tiki den. Reviewers consistently framed it as the rare tiki bar with a destination address. The Michelin Guide's opening write-up described an elevated, 21st-century take on the form.

The crowd was a Times Square mix, theatergoers, tourists, and cocktail enthusiasts who came specifically for Miller's program. Early evenings caught the pre-show rush. Later it settled into a destination-bar rhythm for people who knew the rum list was worth the detour. By the bar's own account the room ran on the energy of a polished, generous tiki house rather than a quiet sipping den.

For a tight, rum-and-cocktail program with a hidden-door entrance, book Attaboy in New York. For deep cocktail craft on a reservation, there is Death & Co in New York, and for an Irish-bar take on classic mixing, The Dead Rabbit in New York. Start from our full New York cocktail bars guide or the wider New York bar guide.