January 30, 2003
Famous Foxy's

You know how there's places you're supposed to go when you go to new cities? Like the Lourve in Paris, or the Empire State Building in New York? Well, apparently, when you're in the Virgin Islands you're supposed to go this place called Foxy's. It's more or less a bar and restaurant- but I guess on some other level it represents something more. It's a bit of a badge of notoriety around the rest of the world to be seen with a Foxy's tee shirt around a yacht club, or Luau Larry's in Avalon. As if to say you're cool enough to have sailed in the Virgins without having to really say it. Kind of like a yachtie secret club. Anyway, Foxy's is a beach shack of sorts, owned by a black guy named, what else but Foxy. I'm not sure how the whole thing started- but the schtick is that he strums a ukulele and improvises little tongue in cheek ditties about the tourists from under the shade of his palm shack with his dreadlocks swaying as he sits perched on a barstool wearing a "down on his luck" type uniform (which I assure you, he's not). I'm not sure where the sailor connection came in- but nonetheless, everyone said we just had to go there.

Now it's grown to be a full blown operation ala Hard Rock Café or Planet Hollywood. They've even got a line of private label Foxy's beer goin'. You can see that at some point pre-exploitation, this could have been a great thing. The floor is sand and there are yacht club pennants and flags from different countries hanging from the ceiling. Hammocks are swinging from the palm trees out front. It's almost hard to say where the beach ends and Foxy's begins, since from your position on the sand, you're drawn in by the beguiling sounds of a blender humming away as it turns out froo froo drinks to the barbecued tourists. But by the time we visited- the wait staff was all in matching Hawaiian shirts with crisp khaki shorts. The menu was full of things like burgers and steak- with a few "island" items like chicken roti and conch chowder. Or, "Oooh! Mango hot sauce! How exotic!" Puh-lease. In Trinidad we paid about $2US for a kick ass roti, and Foxy was pulling in about $20US for something that pretty much stunk in comparison. The bartenders and waiters were all totally stoned out of their minds, and seemed to find us nothing more but in the way of their naptime. The place was empty when we sat down, and the hostess made a big stink, saying she had to make sure she didn't have a reservation for that table… for this one table of about 25 that were empty.