02/09/2026
We’ve been open for 6 years now and going into our 7th year open. It happened last month sometime, but truthfully I’m terrible with birthdays. Our space has changed so much since then, and we’re constantly hanging new stuff from travels or that you lovely bunch have gifted us.
Building this place was an experience. Almost all of it is either vintage salvage from tiki bars of the past, scraps from old movie and television set sales, literal garbage we picked, or stuff that was hand carved by us.
Here’s some pics from first glimpses at the space to just before we opened.
1 - First look at the bar
2 - First look at the dining room
3- Drinks with Myla and Nix at Mutiny Bar in Detroit - Myla came up with the name MaiPai
4 - Signed a lease, no going back now
5 - Learned to make Detroit style pizza with the legend himself, Shawn Randazzo
6 - Hunted down some vintage 60s decor from the king of Montreal restaurant salvage, Bernard
7 - First oven - too big for the space, and financed over 3 years
8 - Learning to carve things on the fly
9 - A lot of the bamboo and thatching came from Nicholas at Bamboo Toronto
10 - I snagged 50 of these giant bamboo pieces for nothing from someone who abandoned a project
11 - Many late night crafting sessions went into this build
12 - Starting to take shape
13 - This was a Facebook marketplace cheap find that someone had build out of paper mache for a party
14 - Learned the hard way how expensive and hard to work with epoxy resin is
15 - The dining room looked like this through most of lockdown - a storage / workshop area
16 - After my pickup died, a 2010 Toyota Yaris was forced to do a lot of heavy lifting
17 - Dining room is starting to look like something
18 - Before and after - bar side
19 - A blurry night of drink research with Pete, who helped a ton with the initial designs and build
20 - Drink testing with Pete and Jay
