A couple weeks after Vegas, Mr. Baseball and I went down to San Diego for Memorial Day weekend, kicking off part two of the summer Baseball/Tiki Road Trip.
After a truly epic traffic jam, we finally checked in to the hotel and then headed in the direction of Shelter Island, which was blessedly not too far from the Gaslamp District. We were on our way to our dinner destination, Bali Hai, but we had a little extra time so we stopped to check out Trader Mort’s Liquor Store.
Mr. Baseball stayed in the car and listened to the baseball game while I went to explore and take pics. You can’t really see in any of my photos, but surrounding the store were tiki torches that lit up at night.
While I do dig the tiki design here, I also love the idea of giving personality to otherwise generic/utilitarian places (like a liquor store).
The guy working here was super nice about me sneaking around the store, and even suggested I check out the upstairs. There wasn’t too much up there, but you could look down through the A-frame opening at the boat model in the previous shot.
I liked the toucan and all the bamboo, and also this intense tiki outside. He’s iconic enough that Munktiki produced a mug with his likeness that catches a pretty penny on eBay.
Trader Mort’s Liquor
2904 Shelter Island Dr.
San Diego, CA 92106
619-224-3771
, and indeed, it was. This is what James Teitelbaum had to say about it:
Besides Ventura Boulevard, The Valley doesn’t really have too many interesting shopping opportunities going for it. But there’s a stretch of Magnolia Boulevard near Burbank that’s chock-a-block with some great stores, 8-Ball being one of them. (Also, 
The tiki merch set-up gets bonus points for presentation. It seems to be mostly items that can be found (and are currently still in stock) on 
If you’re already in the area, I recommend stopping by 
One more awesome thing about this store—Shag designed their promo postcards!
The Tiki Chick 