Tagged: beach bar, caribbean, cupecoy, dany's beach bar, dennis kozuch, guest author, st. maarten, st. martin, sxm
Guest author Dennis Kozuch has been a longtime visitor to St. Maarten/Martin and its beach bars and in his latest contribution to this blog and the beach bar bums community, he fills us in on Dany’s Beach Bar, also known as Cupecoy Beach Bar, located on Cupecoy Beach just south of La Samanna on the St. Marteen/Martin border. Sometimes out of devastation comes opportunity and Dany wasted no time in bringing back that old-time traditional beach bar to the friendliest of islands when it needed it the most.
Dany Isaac has spent a good portion of his life on Cupecoy beach close to the French/Dutch border of St. Maarten. The longtime fixture to regular visitors on the beach that comes and goes based on Mother Nature’s whims, is one of the few folks who took advantage of the destruction that hurricanes Irma and Maria brought to the Caribbean.
How’s that? Well for over a decade Dany took care of those hearty souls who trekked to Cupecoy for its beauty and its solitude. Very few cruisers head over to Cupecoy on their day trips, and quite frankly, if you didn’t know it was there you’d pass right by it. Isaac formerly operated a “sort of” concession stand out of the back of his pickup truck – rented a few beach chairs and umbrellas, had a couple coolers filled with ice cold beer, maybe cooked up some ribs on a grill if folks asked and offered advice as most good bar owners do on the “Friendly Isle”.
But after Irma, Dany saw an opportunity. He opened an actual beach bar at the top of the path leading down to the beach – a small little kiosk with a grill to make his chicken and ribs and a brand new johnny-on-the-spot. Friends and family helped with the endeavor. Dany’s mother still fills in when Dany’s busy tending to business, as do others. There’s no cash register and no credit cards. People run tabs. Dany will even deliver you a couple of his famous rum punches on his ATV if that’s what you want.
Old time beach bars are becoming a thing of the past given corporate presences on islands all over the Caribbean. Harsh weather has also destroyed the more ramshackle properties. New rules on St. Maarten/Martin have beach bar entrepreneurs facing strict guidelines on building materials and bar placement near the beach. But Dany and his band of regulars have brought the spirit of the old beach bar to Cupecoy.
Don’t come expecting a blender drink, a Margarita or a high end bourbon. But if you want a strong rum and coke or an ice cold beer (Dany gets a trophy for keeping his beer cold with CRUSHED ice not cubes), this is your spot. Folks come for the sunset (and sometimes its’ green flash). And they all become friends.
Find out more about St. Maarten/Martin beach bars.
Guest Authors
If you’d like to contribute to a blog post, please send me an email at info (at) beachbarbums (dot) com. You can write it yourself of just send me a synopsis and I’ll write it. Probably not as well as you would write it but hey, it’s guaranteed to get posted. Either way, I’d love to feature your story!
