I didn’t know a soul when I pulled into town, looking for a fresh start when I happened upon the dusty old place with a “for rent” sign in the window.  After a couple months of elbow grease and every nickel to my name, we turned this bolthole into a humble little escape across the way from the old resort on the beach.  Not quite waterfront, but shoot…. if you close your eyes and listen closely you might hear waves crashing off in the distance.

We sure have come a long way since our opening day way back when.  The only folks who darkened our door that day were a pair of lost retirees asking for directions and a small biker gang making a pitstop while they changed a couple flat tires.  Talk about perfect strangers! 

But the jukebox didn’t know any better and that thing was rocking as if we had a full house. We ended up blowing through all my Michelob and Jack Daniels, and everyone stayed past closing time that night.  I wanna say the old couple even hitched a ride with the biker gang the next day. 

Slowly but surely as word spread we developed our regular crew of locals looking for a place where they could escape the sun for a minute, leave their troubles at the door and shoot the breeze with other folks looking for the same.  No hassles, no worries - just strangers in paradise. 

Then after a couple years, the occasional snowbird would sneak off the resort looking for a night on the town.  Over time, as more and more snowbirds kept wandering over here from the resort to see what all the fuss was about, we started adding more and more fun stuff to keep it interesting. 

Bingo night, limbo night, karaoke night, the Friday Night Fish Fry, hawaiian shirt night, the annual hot dog eating contest……you name it, we’ve done it all, and every regular has their favorite.  

Y’know, we all start off as strangers at one time or another.  Over time, some of these snowbirds started coming so frequently they ended up flying south permanently and became locals just like the rest of us.  Snowbirds become strangers, strangers become locals, locals become townies, townies become regulars…..and so it goes…..and eventually our humble little place wasn’t so little anymore. 

At one point the old resort across the way changed ownership and the new folks wised up.  For years they saw their clientele blazing a one-way trail to our old place to forget about life for a while.  So they spruced up their own old place, dropped a bunch of big new palm trees in and made us an offer we couldn’t refuse for us to move to the new old spot, right on the beach across the street.  

Now, you’d have to have a snorkel and flippers on to get any closer to the water!  It took a couple years for us to move everything over and we busted our tails trying to keep everything the same for our regulars. 

Still, some of ‘em are….let’s just say “lovably crabby” (you know who you are!).......and you just know the second they hit the stool they’ll start going on about how things have gone to hell in a handbasket.  And some days it's hard to blame ‘em!  But after a coupla ice cold Shark Bites while the sun sets over the horizon line……and let’s just say that usually does the trick.

Cheers - Bev