I felt the need to post this today, 26 years after the opening of Sunset Beach Bar!
Building My First Bar How do you start your first bar? First is a location, then a lease, then a concept, a name, a logo, a license, insurance, employees, equipment, power, water, phone, trash removal etc, etc, etc. I was lucky on the location. I had worked for a company for three years whose principle had purchased the bankrupt Caravanserai Hotel and offered to lease the "little bar out front" to me. The name was easy too as the location was on the western end of the Island. I'm pretty good at visualizing concepts and what I saw in the lay of the land was a given. A simple bar with a wide ocean front deck and a simple BBQ operation, down wind of the bar. A basic stereo system playing Island tunes and classic rock was was I wanted for the crowd that I envisioned patronizing the place. Cold beer, good drinks, good music and a friendly staff. And the beach and the ocean views. And so was born Sunset Beach Bar. The bar building had been built years earlier as a part of the Caravanserai Hotel. It had been used as a bar but not focused upon as anything more than a service to the hotel. We were about to change that. The building had survived Hurricane Luis but had been beaten up a bit. The terracotta roof was a mess of broken tiles. We stripped off the tiles and exposed the asphalt shingle roof which was in pretty good shape. We covered the dark shingles with a white zinc roof. The bar top was finished in dark brown little round tiles, ugly. The tiles were soon history and the top given a coat of cement paint. The mish mash of cabinets inside were soon scrap lumber. A coat of dark brown paint on the inside walls from the floor to the bar top was applied and the exterior was covered in light blue with a light grey trim. While we had an open trench across the driveway of Caravanserai Hotel a gentleman approached me and commented that we had an open trench to which I agreed. He then said that we should run a telephone line while the trench was still open, OK. He then introduced himself a "Gibbs", he was with the local telephone company Telem. Next he asked how long a cable would we need, about 125 feet. He got on his cell phone and called Yolanda at his office and asked her to drop off the cable on her way home that night. Yolanda lived down the road in Beacon Hill and did indeed drop off the cable that evening. A week later another employee of Telem, Shorty, came to the bar and dropped off two copies of an application for telephone service. Carl Wagner from Don Carlos Restaurant was sitting at the bar, enjoying a drink from our cooler, and nearly fell off of his chair. In 1996 it was still a bit difficult to get a telephone line installed. And here was the company DELIVERING an application. Carl wanted to know who I knew to get this kind of service. I had no idea. I had never seem Gibbs before. Next was getting the bar and grounds rewired, all new wire was installed including a 1,000 foot feed wire directly to the transformer house in the middle of the Hotel's grounds. There was no power as the local utility company had terminated the connection at the power plant since the hotel had not been operational for several years. When we applied to have our new line activated the power company had to replace the old transformer with a new and smaller one. The day that the bar went "live" the technicians radioed the power plant to "turn on the beach bar". The bar opened for business on September 01, 1996 almost one year after the hit of Hurricane Luis. We began as the neighborhood bar for the residents of Beacon Hill. Business began slowly with some nights being so slow that Gabe and I, and some evenings Geoff from Chesterfield's Restaurant, entertained ourselves by baiting and shooting rats emerging from the empty hotel next door with BB and pellet guns. The bar was decorated with nautical junk which I had been collecting since the passing of Luis. Additional junk was donated by customers and hung from the ceiling and walls of the bar. The most entertaining piece in the collection of bric-a-brac was a bosons chair which hung in the center of the bar. The bosons chair was lowered and raised via a few pulleys and cleats. The chair was salved from the boat "KOMA" , Kiss Old Marks [censored]. Thank you Mark Williamson. This custom made bosons chair was an instant hit with customers sitting in the chair and drinking shooters while hanging nearly upside down. Martin from NCR in Philipsburg donated two brass running lights from the boat which he lost to Hurricane Luis. These port and starboard running lights ended up at Peg Leg Pub, behind the bar. They are antiques which were lighted by kerosene. The construction of the wooden deck was done by Brad and myself with much kibitzing by our resident experts, some of who did raise a hammer or grab a screw gun. I had never built a deck and Brad wasn't particularly handy. So we spent a day touring many bars and restaurants to see how other people had built their decks. We also used this trip to measure the various home made picnic tables and bar stools of the Islands watering holes. The deck was trimmed with a four inch thick rope donated, along with other nautical junk from the van den Bosch brothers, Harry and Johnny and their boatyard.
We ended up building the deck with pressure treated number two lumber, two by eights, set on an eighteen inch center with three by six support columns and railings. This framework was double bolted together. The bar stools were made of two by fours and two by sixes. They're very heavy but can support a 350 pound person. The picnic tables we made with two by sixes and are bolted together too. The deck was structurally sound as it has supported more than 100 people at one time. The bar stool design has been copied by others on the Island. They're durable and we never locked them up as they're too heavy and ungainly to be stolen for home use. We needed to purchase the aggregates to mix our own concrete to anchor the support columns of the deck. We drove over to BBW, the local cement plant. We bumped into Steve Smith, the owner, in the lobby of the offices. Neither Brad or I had any idea of how much sand, gravel and cement we needed. I had to describe to Steve how the deck was going to be built and that I needed to build nearly thirty "ant hills" of concrete around the support columns. Steve quickly calculated the amounts of aggregate that we would need. We had no idea how much money this was going to cost. Steve commented that the bar was our first business venture and he wanted to help us out. The sand, gravel and cement were a "house warming" present from him. Steve still has an open tab at any bar of mine. The colorful surf board logo of Sunset Beach Bar was created out of convenience. We had been searching for used surfboards and windsurfer boards to use as a railing for the deck with little luck. A couple of friends told us where they had seen some junk boards, and that's just what they were. Then Rodger Boutelle, of the Last Mango In Paradise store, donated a board which had come with his well known "Shark Man" figure which stands at the entrance to his Front Street store. The board was then painted with the name Sunset Beach Bar, in outlined letters, by English sign painter Dean Allen. We now had our logo. Some of the initial charm of the bar were our bathrooms, or lack of. We had the use of a couple of rooms in the hotel for storage of beer and liquor but with no water the bathrooms were soon nailed shut. What to do but rent a couple of port-a-johns and place them downwind just inside the parking lot of the hotel. Some of our patrons still preferred the "third tree on the left" over the port-a-johns. In December 1997 we began construction of a building to be half bathrooms and half storeroom. It was an octagon shaped building the same size as the bar, about twenty feet across. The building was divided into three rooms. One quarter of the building was the Ladie's Room, one quarter was the Men's Room and the remaining half was our storeroom. The storeroom was large enough to accommodate an ice machine, refrigerator, freezer, shelving for liquor, wine, juice, logo merchandise, charcoal, burger rolls and lots of cases of beer. As this building was nearing completion we were visited by the local Health & Hygiene Department who wanted to inspect the septic system. Our septic system was nearly complete and they were able to view the entire system before we buried it. Our holding tank was a fiberglass barrel about six feet long by four feet across and was connected to a proper leach field filled with gravel. After much discussion we were given the thumbs up. The next visit was from a gentleman from Public Works. He was a fairly regular customer. The roof was going up and I was watching the crew at work as the gentleman walked up to my side and said "Nice building". I looked at him and said yes. He then asked if we had a building permit. No, we didn't but he knew that. He next asked how soon could I get it finished to which I replied, Monday. It was then Friday afternoon. He simply nodded and said good. End of story. At this time the hotel was under going renovations and there were many changes in their plans and permits. I'll assume that our toilets fell into these renovations and permits. During the construction I was vigilant about pouring Boric Acid on every surface at every opportunity. It was in the dirt foundation, on the plastic sheets under the foundation, in the electrical conduit pipes, on the roof joists, literally everywhere that I could think of. It's a lot less expensive to deal with extermination during construction than dealing with it after infestation happens. The construction guys thought that I was nuts. The barbeque area was added at this time as we now had ample storage room for the needed cooler and freezer to store the perishable foodstuffs. The BBQ area itself had dry storage and a "working" cooler. Our three BBQ grills were stainless steel beer kegs, cut top to bottom with hinges on one side and a handle on the other. The feet of these grills were embedded in the concrete roof over the dry storage. When D grill became operational we added a splintered wooden boat mast to the edge of the deck as a flag pole. The pole flew four flags, a beer mug and three nautical signal flags, two B's and one Q. Not one yacht or boat person ever caught the "beer and BBQ" message. A bit too subtle? One item behind the bar which was cause for quite a few comments, our cash box. We did not have a typical cash register. We had a simple wooden cash box, similar to a cigar box, for bank notes only. I had seen a couple of restaurants using the same thing and simply copied their concept.
Pizza As a thank you to our regular customers we began giving away Dominos pizza on Friday evenings at six o'clock. This gesture of thanks began to draw new customers as well, one of them who we'll call "Disgusting" only showed up for the free pizza. He became so bold that he actually got off of a bar stool to help the pizza delivery guy carry the twenty pizzas from the car to the bar. What to do? We played the game and began to change the delivery time to anywhere from five thirty to six thirty, just to bust his chops. More US Navy League My being involved with the United States Navy League had benefits for Sunset Beach Bar. Sunset became an unofficial "Officers Bar". Sint Maarten was a popular liberty call with the US Navy between 1994 and 1999. The more well known visits were those of aircraft carriers. There were visits to the Island from the "America", the "Teddy Roosevelt", the "John F. Kennedy" and the "John C. Stennis". There were also liberty calls from a variety of other US Navy ships and from the United States Coast Guard. The US Coast Guard Cutters were about eighty to one hundred feet in length with an average crew of about eighteen while the carriers had crews of five thousand or more. During carrier visits we were home to a variety of officers and even had a visit from an Admiral from Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico. Some of the best selling items during a Navy liberty call were Cohiba cigars from Cuba, Robustos and L'Espenditos. During one visit I traded and extra Cohiba humidor for a flight jacket. On a weekend in 1998 we had small group from a United States Coast Guard helicopter. They had been in the area assisting with a search and rescue operation. After spending an afternoon "break" at Sunset their chopper broke down. They ended up spending the weekend at the bar. They were big fans of Carib Lager Beer and we just happened to have Carib umbrellas at the tables on our deck. Yeah, we gave them one. As they were leaving the airport Monday morning they hovered over the bar with the sliding door open to wave the Carib umbrella and yell a thank you as they departed. We never had a negative experience with any military personnel. They were all well behaved and decent tippers too. Missing Bottles In the summer of 1999 we began losing a couple of liquor bottles at night after closing. Four of the bars serving "windows" had an open space between the top of the shutters frame and the roof. This allowed the building to breathe and the heat to escape. The down side was that, a motivated person could reach over the frame at two points and reach the liquor bottles displayed on a shelf running across the bar near the ceiling. After losing a couple of bottles two nights in a row something had be done to prevent this from becoming a daily problem. Closing off this gap with wood was one solution. Hiring a security guard was a possibility. We chose another. Two large rat traps were purchased and set on the ends of the shelf the next evening. The following morning one of the traps was gone as was our liquor bottle problem.
I had some great memory s there. Remembered most of them. I remember the Caribbean Sharks riding in every Fri. night before pizza time. I remember when the hurricanes came through and there was no phone system, the locals meet there to communicate. Thanks for the experiences.
Wendell
BTW today also is my anniversary date for opening my business 48 years ago.
Enjoyed our times there great service lots of fun drinks and good food and the view of the planes landing and taking off and the view of the sea were the best . When did they start using the bosons chair for the drinks and when did they start topless drink for free was to a-joke just to see if it would draw people . The staff was great never had to wait for a drink, it came to be the place to be
Speed 2 cast and crew In the late Summer and Fall of 1996 parts of the movie Speed II were filmed on the Island, both sides. There were several hundred people working and playing hard. Some locals and resident expats were also put to work on the film. There was a lot money being spent. I spent several days wandering around the "set" on the waterfront in Marigot. They had constructed a small village on the recently expanded area between the Cemetery and Le Bar De La Mer. This was the set used in the "final" crash scene of the movie. We had printed business cards good for a free "tequila shooter". I passed them about liberally. And the cast and crew started to patronized the recently opened Sunset Beach Bar. It was interesting to see the combination of people who came from the cast and crew. Who traveled and drank with who. The medics and stunt personnel always seemed to travel together. The sign painters and carpenters. The stars had their body guards. They came in cars, trucks, vans and even on rental Harley Davidson's. One of our first "regulars" from the crew was the location manager Stanley Pierce. He was very out going and could not be called shy. He took a liking to the bar and staff and brought more and more of the cast & crew. Thank you Stanley. At last the stars came. Willem Dafoe was first. Glenn Plummer was second. Then Sandra Bullock arrived with her body guard Michael. Sandra and Glen were there on a regular basis. Around the time of the films holiday break in December 1996 we had another Hollywood actor visit us, Matthew MacCaughney. He was in the proper frame of mind and spent some time one Monday evening acting as our DJ and even doing his "Chicken Man" dance for a while behind the bar. Some of the cast and crew stayed on Island for the December holidays while the bulk went home. I seriously under estimated the amount of Champagne that we would need for our first New Year's Eve. Another couple of cases of Cristal and Veuve Clicquot on hand would have been nice to have. People were buying bottles at an amazing rate that I had not thought possible. Their presence at the bar didn't hurt our small but growing business. Sandra even had a small birthday party at the bar one night in January 1997 for her assistant Susan. When filming on the Island had finished we said our goodbyes to the folks who had become regulars at the bar. To my surprise Stanley Pierce and Steve Perry invited me to join them in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I readily accepted their invitation and made plane reservations. Stanley took care of the hotel reservations as he was from New Orleans. When I arrived in New Orleans there was Stanley at the airport with a new black Ford Expedition to give me a ride to the Dauphine Orleans Hotel, including a motorcycle cop escort. While there I had to rent a tuxedo as we were attending the Endymion Ball at the New Orleans Super Dome. The entertainment that night was Little Richard and then The Doobie Brothers. We had a table second row, center stage. That night Steve Perry, who had been one of the Producers for Speed II, invited me to join him and Stanley Pierce the next day for the Endymion Parade. We were in the parade all right. We were in a purple Rent-A-Wreck pickup truck. Along with us in the truck were the Hughes Brothers, Allen and Albert, who were filming a documentary about pimps and prostitutes who travel across America from event to event.
Topless Women Drink 4 Free This "concept" happen accidentally. That is, we didn't sit around drinking beer and dream up this promotion. In the spring of 1997 we had a group four Dutch people operating a tandem sky diving operation from the Dutch side airport. Their problem was the weather. There was a week where it was too rainy or too windy or too overcast to safely operate their business. So what did the crew do? What else? Drink. They ran up such a large tab that it was "traded" for sky dives for the entire staff for Christmas 1997. One day there was a group of 4 or 5 girls laying out on the beach sunbathing, sans tops. (topless). Every time they needed a round of drinks they put their tops on and walked up to the bar, This didn't endear them to the drinking sky dive crew. On about the third trip to the bar one of the sky divers, J.R., jumped over the bar and erased the "Cocktail Of D Day" Sign and wrote "Topless Women Drink 4 Free". J.R. said to put the drinks on the sky divers tab. And we just left the changed sign there. That's the story. About a year later we did have t-shirts made advertising this, using nautical flags to "spell" the slogan "Topless Women Drink 4 Free". Jets Landing Lights One morning in the Spring of 1997 I was opening the bar for business. It was about 10:00AM. A morning jogger approached the bar and began giving me some light hearted ribbing. He was an American Airlines pilot who had arrived the previous evening. He told me that because they were late out of the gate in San Juan, they arrive a little late in Sint Maarten and missed getting a nightcap at Sunset Beach Bar. We had closed promptly at 11:00PM. I responded by telling him that if we had known that we would have had some late arrivals we would have remained open. He said that he'd be back in a week and would let us "know" if they were coming for a beer or not. The week passed and Gabe, one of our bartenders, and I waited for "word" from the pilot. Nada. But, as the plane came in on it's final approach the landing lights started blinking off and on. So we waited. Some twenty minutes later the two pilots came bounding into the bar with ear to ear grins. This flashing of the lights became a regular thing as word spread among the pilots on this Dallas, San Juan, Sint Maarten flight. It was also entertaining for both our regular local clients and tourists alike. We also had on occasion a phone call from the airport tower letting us know that the flight was late and that the pilots would be on their way to the bar shortly after landing. Only in the Islands. Jell-O Shooters We've all heard of Jell-O shooters and we usually associate them with an event like Spring Break. We started giving away Jell-O shooters on Sunday afternoons in our second or third year of operations at Sunset. I made them at my house on Saturday afternoons and brought them to the bar on Sunday mornings. Here's how to make Jell-O shooters which are firm enough to scoop out of a squat plastic souffle dish. First boil the amount of water as directed to on the package, times the numbers of boxes which you're making in one large batch. Second, empty the powered Jell-O into a large mixing bowl. Third, pour the boiling water into the mixing bowl with the powered Jell-O. Fourth, add the alcohol to the mixture but use only half of the volume of the prescribed amount of water. Now pour the hot mixture into the squat plastic souffle cups. I used several trays, or half sheet pans, to stack the filled cups in my freezer. A refrigerator is not cold enough to congeal the mixture to a firm enough consistency. We used different flavors of Jell-O with different types of liquor. Tequila was used with Lime Jell-O. Vodka was used with cranberry Jell-O. Rum was mixed with Lemon Jell-O. Some of the other mixtures were successes and some were pretty awful tasting, trial and error
Wow, great stories, Neil!! That is funny about the topless drink for free, how that started. Especially liked the one about the pilots of the San Juan flight! We were on that flight one time when it was WAAAY late. We arrived at SXM at something like midnight. All the car rental guys had gone home and they called up a bunch of taxi drivers from home, to take people from the airport. We were headed to the French side, so the taxi driver asked if we minded if he went through the drive through at KFC and picked up some chicken (for himself!)
I remember a couple of times there were phone calls made when you and/or Junior were at that bar and visible on the webcam. We went there with Junior not too long after they opened (maybe the second or third year) as he indicated "that guy makes a good burger and fish sandwich".
wow awesome great story Neil... We've been patrons for a long time when it wasn't a tourist trap,,, my wife rarely paid for a drink! had some of best times of my life there,, began with just my wife and I visiting her cousin Rick and eventually we would return every December with more and more friends,, Sunset was legendary in our circle,,,we became friends with many people, there was a the point where I knew more people there than I did at home! Our first trip to SXM was 94 and we have been over 50 times since. We've met a time or two back in the day,,, so ya keep the stories coming,,
Oh those memories! We used to spent many afternoons there watching planes and talking to people and barmaids, even Heidi when she was in not too grumpy of a mood. Was a must stop for us. Wish it would have same vibe now....
Thanks for posting that!! We had great times there!!! The halloween parties were the best on the island!!! Yes, I still have my original SSBB tank top and long sleeve shirt!!! Cool story about the blinking lights!! "Save the last call for us"!!!
Those were the Best of Times/ Vacations for us. Being from New England, we met Neil and followed his ventures on every vacation Thanks for the “ Memories “
Thanks Neil for answering how Topless started, that and the Bosons chair always was interesting all in good fun even the crab races on the beach . We are glad that we were there for the great times at THE PLACE TO BE AT . You created the Sunset Beach Bar it will always be there in my mind THANKS
My first trip to SXM was either 2000 or 2001? My friend and I got off the plane, got our rental car and headed straight to SSBB--yes, luggage in car and all...like I said, our first trip, not too knowledgeable about island goings on, but we were lucky to return to our car full of luggage! Anyway, we sat down to great reggae music playing with lots of what I assumed were locals swaying their heads from side to side to the music and limin. We joined the limin and head bobbing, had some great conversations with those at the bar and was my first introduction to the island...Many return visits after that....thx Neil!! Sorely miss that original, true " island" bar!!
So I dove into my archives a little more and thought I'd put together all my video clips from SSBB over the years,, lots of crazy times to say the least,,
My wife and I enjoy all your St. Maarten videos from over the years. We love Sunset beach Bar, we will be staying nearby the Sand Bar for a couple of months in December. Thanks for the videos, fun stuff.
So I dove into my archives a little more and thought I'd put together all my video clips from SSBB over the years,, lots of crazy times to say the least,,
First time there for me was 1998. That was a fun little bar but never really hung there as I was busy fixing our place. Had a pic of us sitting around drinking, (doh) at SBYC with a bunch of friends. Cheers Neil. irina
That was great!! We're still "newbies" from 2002!! It's amazing how much both places have expanded. Yes, sadly SSBB became a cruise ship tourist trap. Yet, IMHO, Driftwood has always been a great lil staple for good bar food and great tropical drinks!! I still love there pizza, the old truck! Order a large pie get a free drink!! How many times the pizza didn't make it back to the unit! LOL!! Thanks for sharing!! Sorry we never ran into you, as we are Oct into Nov (SSBB had the best Halloween parties!!) travelers and sometime Mar into April!
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