Ahoy: An early look inside the Yachtsman
"It's a tiki interpretation of Pee-wee's Playhouse," said one designer.
The Yachtsman - Philly's first tiki bar in recent memory* - is two to three weeks away at 1444 Frankford Ave. in Fishtown.
PYT and Emmanuelle's Tommy Up says he and Sarah Brown are going for '70s rec room kitsch in redoing the former Grady O's.
Designers Chris Thomas and Greg Charnock, who worked on the nearby Pizza Brain and Danger Salon, joined the project a month or so ago, and are working with artists including Pedro Ospina (who fashioned a Moai-like head out of the plastic bed of a truck) and Nick Bader.
They're basing the look on a fictional yachtsman and the stuff he saw on his journeys.
"It's a tiki interpretation of Pee-wee's Playhouse," Thomas said.
* We oldtimers probably remember the Pub Tiki, now a women's clothing store at 1718 Walnut St., as well as Kona Kai in Bala Cynwyd and the Hawaiian Cottage in Cherry Hill. See HiddenCityPhila's great retrospective here.