One way to give directions to Cabanas: Head down Kuhio Avenue until you get to the Food Pantry, take a left, take another left and park in the (expensive) private lot, then walk ‘ewa across the street and enter the lobby of the ‘Ohana Waikiki West hotel. Take the elevator to the mezzanine/swimming pool level, and walk up to the bar.

Another way: it’s at the corner of Kuhio and Walina, about 20 feet up.

We don’t talk about locations that way in Honolulu like they do in other cities, but it fits this place—Cabanas is one of the relatively few bars in this town that feels like a neighborhood hangout. Yes, it’s in a hotel, and yeah, it’s next to a swimming pool, but after you’ve settled into your seat and started drinking in the oddly urban atmosphere, you’d be hard-pressed to describe Cabanas as a hotel bar. It’s more like an open-air living room, offering comfort, entertainment and service at exactly the levels you’d expect on a good friend’s lanai.

Pau hana here is more about the feeling of being outside in Waikiki than any particularly stunning house specials—you’ll have to get here before 5 o’clock for the really good deals, like $3 Mai Tais and Bloody Marys for fifty cents more. But the evening is full of charms even at standard prices ($5 bottles of all the usual domestics). As the sunlight falls, year-round Christmas lights flicker into life around the outdoor cabanas—there are two of them, offering cozy seating and shelter from the sometimes-lively breeze—and around the pool tables. Friendly cocktail servers wander by occasionally, and what they lack in promptness is more than made up for in aloha.

The bartenders play a steady mix of classic rock at the perfect volume, just loud enough to enjoy, not so blaring that you find yourself actually thinking about classic rock. Stay past 8 o’clock (or thereabouts, especially on weekends) and you’ll be treated to one of the best passive karaoke experiences on the island as a tight group of regulars belt out Motown and soul classics so smoothly that if you’re not paying attention, it sounds like the real thing. OK, a little bit.

The closer you get to the makai railing—and the closer the hour gets to midnight—you may notice some unfamiliar sounds. They don’t drift in, exactly. It’s more like a series of occasional bursts of noise. Buses honking, cops squawking past, people yelling unintelligibly, that sort of thing. Eventually it dawns on you—there’s a city out there! You look over the railing and sure enough, there are all kinds of strange goings-on along Kuhio Avenue below. Stray cats, clear-heeled young women in shockingly short skirts, drunk guys, cops, tourists—all close enough to eavesdrop on. If there’s a more urban hotel bar on this island than Cabana’s at 11 on a Saturday night, we’d like to see it.

—Ragnar Carlson

Cabanas Pool Bar

2330 Kuhio Ave, ‘Ohana Waikiki West Hotel, 11am–2am daily, 922-3143

Getting In: Free, ID after dark

Sightings: A couple about to catch their flight home

Dress Code: Beach attire

Soundtrack: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix

Signature Drinks: $6 Bloody Marys, $5 Longboard Lager and Landshark

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