New In Town: Red Hot Tiki

Gulfport has a new business in town and its name is Red Hot Tiki. Owners Sharon Doan and Rhonda Riccio have been selling their own hot sauce creations around the Pinellas County area and online for two years and recently took the plunge in opening a retail location on Beach Blvd., moving into the old Beach'n Body Boutique.

The two new business owners and their friends are busy painting, cleaning and consulting with contractors to complete renovations in preparation for a September 6 opening. They've put a lot of work into the new location and will set up a booth at Geckofest in front of the store to introduce current and future customers to the location.

The business plan began in fun a couple years ago with a few friends at a barbecue hosted by Rhonda and her husband, Dino Riccio, when the conversation came to hot sauces. The group of friends and family tossed around a few initial ideas for custom-made sauces, developed the ideas and later got to work on the recipes.

“It was us three and my brother and my sister-in-law and some other friends. There's like nine of us,” says Dino Riccio of the genesis of the idea, which was meant only to please themselves. “Our products are our recipes and they're made for us.”

Once they fine-tuned the recipes and marketing, they approached several local manufacturers to help mass produce the products and labels (designed by Carrie Riccio) for retail sale. They also came up with several recipes for coffee blends and procured a coffee roaster to make that idea marketable.

Red Hot Tiki sauces include, among others:

• Torrid Fire
• Tempestuous Fire (cayenne vinegar)
• Tropical Fire
• Island Mango
• Pepper Chipotle
• Original Pepper
• Haunted Tiki (smokey ghost pepper)

Coffees include:

• Special Tiki (medium roast)
• Tropical Island (caramel vanilla)
• Crazy Jamaican (rum-flavored) 

The Red Hot Tiki business is a member of the Ring of Fire, which is a loosely joined community of hot sauce and barbecue sauce makers. The Ring allows each of the manufacturers to share links, stories and communications with each other and their fans in a sort of hot sauce social media.

“We've been very pleased with the sales, that's why we opened the store,” Dino Riccio says says of the sales at festivals and online. “We think we can support the store with not only our sauces but all the other stuff we sell.”

Other products include dozens of barbecue sauces, 100 hot sauces, varieties of chutneys, pepper jellies, salsas, spices, rubs, t-shirts, novelties and many other products, all with a touch of spice by companies from all over. While the focus is on variety, they are partial to Florida manufacturers.

Red Hot Tiki's “About Us” story on the website is an interesting tongue-in-cheek tale exaggerating the genesis of the business based on a crack of lightning:

...The bolt strikes the top of the bar, setting the dried palm leaves ablaze. The flames engulf the bar, burning brightly around the head of the tiki god. The face glows from the flames, getting redder as the fire grows around it. After the fire, the wooden tiki still glows red in the ashes and the Red Hot Tiki was born.

Mr. Riccio assures there was a crack of lightening and a storm rolling in when the first discussion of the business occurred, although maybe not entirely as depicted.

The Riccios live in Wesley Chapel and Doan in Clearwater. They know each other from their children being in school together and used to come to Gulfport for the various festivals throughout the year. They've had their eye on Beach Blvd. as a retail location for a while and recently jumped at the chance when the former home of Beach n' Body Boutique became available.

Red Hot Tiki will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am to 6 p.m. at 2904 Beach Blvd. Gulfport, FL 33707. They can be reached at 727-776-5931 or through their Facebook page.