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Lost Lake
Texas Tiki Disco

Art Direction / Produce

Paul McGee and his team at Lost Lake played host to Bobby Heugel of Anvil Bar & Refuge in February of 2016. Anvil, one of Houston’s most celebrated cocktail bars, took over Lost Lake for a weeklong pop-up while McGee took the Lost Lake crew on a research trip to Martinique.

When Anvil Bar & Refuge opened in 2009, it was Houston’s first bar devoted to classic cocktails. Building a program with equal focus on utilizing quality spirits and serving locals, Anvil quickly gained popularity among Houstonians and garnered national acclaim.

For Anvil’s foray into the Chicago cocktail landscape, Heugel devled into the annals of US bar history in developing a concept.

The popular tiki temples that inspired Lost Lake met their downfall in the 1970s through the onset of disco culture. The laid-back vibe and the quality, handcrafted drinks that are pillars of tiki couldn’t coexist with the demand for super speedy service, live music and dance floors. Heugel and his team explored a booze-fueled conspiracy theory:  Tiki and disco are not opposing cosmic forces, and can, in fact, spectacularly co-exist.

Channeling the tiki-disco hybrids that exist in Caribbean discotheques outside the US, Anvil Bar & Refuge presented an alternative reality in which they envisioned what would have happened if tiki and disco had merged here in the United States.

The result was a rainbow-hued trip into a super fun parallel universe: Tropical takes on classic cocktails, cantaloupe balls covered in disco glitter, and a menu of 70s-inspired bar snacks.

It was definitely a fun week – many thanks to the Anvil crew for coming up!