We never wanted to be the best. We wanted to be the first.
That idea has guided Tiki Diablo from the very beginning. Not first for the sake of being first, but first to create something original, unexpected, and worth making. We’ve never been interested in chasing trends or making more of what everyone else is making. We’d rather take a chance on an idea that genuinely excites us than build something safe.
Long before Tiki Diablo became part of the modern tiki revival, my husband, Danny Gallardo, was simply someone who loved making things. He grew up believing you could figure out how to build almost anything, a mindset he inherited from his father, a master craftsman who worked on custom yacht interiors in Santa Barbara. Whether he was carving wood, sculpting clay, fabricating metal, or designing immersive spaces, Danny approached new challenges the same way: if he didn’t know how to do it, he’d learn.
Danny made difficult things look effortless, but that ease came from years of practice, discipline, and care. He laughed often and rarely took himself too seriously, but he cared deeply about the quality of the work and the people who would eventually live with it. That combination of craftsmanship, curiosity, humor, and generosity became the foundation of Tiki Diablo.
His work helped fuel the modern tiki revival, finding its way into bars, restaurants, private collections, and homes around the world. But that still doesn’t fully explain what we built together.
For me, Tiki Diablo has always been about building a world.
Danny and I built it alongside our crew, collaborators, friends, and collectors. It became our creative partnership, our design studio, our social life, and eventually a community that reached far beyond us. People connected with more than the objects themselves. They connected with the stories, the humor, the craftsmanship, and the sense of escapism behind them.
That same point of view shaped everything we made. We wanted pieces that felt handmade, unexpected, and full of personality—not objects designed simply to match a room or follow whatever was popular. We wanted things with character, pieces that felt like they already had a story and might still earn a place on someone’s shelf years later.
The question behind the work was always pretty simple: Would we want this in our own home? If the answer was no, there wasn’t much reason to make it.
At the heart of all of this was a belief that original things are worth making. We wanted the work to feel like us, not like something designed by committee. Danny used to say that old-school cool is always cool, and I still think that’s true.
When Danny passed away in February 2026, I found myself grieving my husband while also deciding what would happen to everything we had built together. Walking into the studio was overwhelming for a while. Then I started thinking about what Danny would probably say if he walked through the door, and I’m fairly certain it would’ve been something along the lines of, “Alright, enough already. Get back to work.”
So we did.
I’ve been part of Tiki Diablo throughout our journey together, working across ceramics, production, operations, client relationships, and all the details that keep a small creative business moving. Danny and I had very different strengths, but this was always something we built together.
Today I’m carrying Tiki Diablo forward while allowing it to evolve. Some of what you’ll see comes from designs Danny and I had already begun or ideas from his archive that never made it into production. Other pieces come from my own work, new collaborations, and ideas that simply make me excited to get back into the studio.
I’m taking more creative chances now, and some of them may fall completely flat. That’s okay. I’m not trying to recreate Danny. No one could. What I want to carry forward is the part of him that never waited until he knew exactly what he was doing. He believed you figured things out by doing them, and that willingness to jump in, adapt, laugh when things go sideways, and keep moving has always been part of Tiki Diablo.
Looking back, I’m most proud that we built something from absolutely nothing and that it’s still here. I’m proud of the work, but I’m just as proud of the community that formed around it. People became friends, traveled together, gathered at conventions, built home bars, and created traditions and memories of their own. We never could have planned that, and it’s become one of the most meaningful parts of this journey.
Twenty years from now, I hope someone picks up a Tiki Diablo piece without knowing anything about Danny, me, or even tiki culture and simply thinks, “Oh, this is fun.” Original, well made, full of personality… maybe a little weird. The kind of object that carries you somewhere else for a little while.
That’s what we’ve always been trying to make.
And that’s what I’m still chasing.
— Stephanie Gallardo
