TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Calmos Cafe

Right after hurricane Irma, I saw pictures of Calmos Café and it looked like it was flattened. Can anyone tell us if they are rebuilding Calmos, and if so, what progress has been made and is there an expected open date?

We are going in March and always stay in Grand Case, we would love to know the status of Calmos also. We've has a lot of great times there.

2 weeks ago it was boarded up & we saw no activity. Hope they will fix & reopen also.

The last that I read they were waiting on the government to tell them if they will be allowed to rebuild. :-(

Don't know if it's true but I'm sure I read that the Calmos got a couple of containers and loaded everything from inside the Calmos into the shipping containers. If it's true it was a very smart move. They should still have all their fixtures plus they would have been safe from looting and although there are severe damages they just need a building.....AND insurance money...and workers to rebuild....and government permission. When you think about it..it's pretty sad when the insurance companies, the government and the labour force give business victims more grief than the original hurricane!

There are pictures on their facebook loading the containers the day before the storm......I agree they didn't just lock the door and hope for the best they instead were very proactive putting them in a great position to rebuild cheaply (their hut wasn't really a marvel of construction) yet are still stuck in limbo. I'm assuming this has something to do with the setbacks the French seem like now is a good time to enforce/introduce. I do like setback laws for new development areas but I think when the town has already been built a certain way you have to take that under consideration. I expect an official government decision on all these waterside rebuilds that are limbo in about 2-3 years (sarcasm.....but sadly possible).

You know, I don't understand why the lolos in Grand Case are open, have been for several months, and apparently other people don't have permission to rebuild and reopen. Doesn't make sense to me.

If I'm not mistaken I believe the Lolo's are renting in a Government owned building. That may be the reason.

Well, yeah, but the 8 restaurants on Orient are also on property owned by the Collectivite', but they haven't been able to reopen..

We just heard from our friends at Piazza Pascal and they told us that they have only been open to the public for 2 weeks and that Piazza Pascal has been repaired. However they indicated that Grand Case is stagnant; Not much progress and not completely cleaned up. The problem seems to be either the businesses were leased out without having insurance on the buildings or they are waiting for insurance money.