Six years after popular beach bar Calico Jacks closed its doors for the last time, the eponymous pirate has returned to Seven Mile Beach with the opening of Jacks Beach Bar.
Owner Handel Whittaker said that the name of the venue, located on the former Coral Beach site off West Bay Road, was a tribute to his former bar.
“We’re trying to create the same vibe that we had at Calico Jack’s,” he said. “We’ll be selling food and drink and our famous Calico Jack’s full moon parties will be coming online shortly.”
The number of people who visited Jacks Beach Bar on the very first weekend it opened was a good sign, said Whittaker.
Popular addition
“I think, by the response that we had on Sunday … I think people are starving for this kind of facility,” he said. “Most beach bars are connected to a hotel. This isn’t, and this is what the uniqueness about this facility, that it is a beach bar restaurant right on the ocean.
Asked whether other people would try to develop a similar concept, Whittaker said they could try – but finding a location would make it difficult.
“The one dilemma that we have on Seven Mile Beach right now is that most of the choice spots are taken up by hotels,” he said, “which is not a bad thing, you know. We want the hotels to be filled, but they can come here and eat and drink as well.”
Whittaker and his team also own the former Royal Palms site next door, which they are currently developing and hope to have up and running by June or July this year.
“They’re going to be separate, but combined,” he said. “We’re looking at Royal Palms being a little more upscale. It will be a part of our venue for cruise ships on busy cruise ship days, but in the evenings, it’ll be a place for dinner on our patio.”
People who are hoping to swim in Royal Palms’ swimming pool once again are likely to be disappointed as the pool as now been filled in to create more space.
But, said Whittaker, pointing to the ocean, “We got a really big swimming pool in back of us. People can use that.”
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There is an unpleasant consequence of this establishment which is intended to revitalize our beautiful beach:
Trash.
Sunday morning I picked it out of the sand on the establishments water front.
This Tuesday morning post Easter Monday I while on my standard WBR “trash walk” I needed to turn west down the road that leads to the establishment to pick up litter – over a dozen beer bottles and plastic cups abandoned on the road side. Sorry, no phone with me so no photos.
The road may be public property however I will argue that JBB needs to provide and maintain trash bins along that road. Perhaps they might argue that the trash is not their responsibility once it leaves their site ( I had the manager at Foster’s CB tell me that once. Just yesterday I had a Palm Heights employee say something similar to me as I trash picked their parking site on Esterly Tibbetts.)
So instead it becomes my responsibility – even though I did not generate the trash or abandon it there – to pick up and dispose of responsibly.
Why? Because I care about our community.
Anne Evans
Year Round Resident
Grand Cayman
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask them to leave a credit card or bottle deposit.
Yes Bottle Deposit! Then there w/b far better chance that they would end up recycled.