TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Belgian Chocolate Shop is History

One of our first stops only to find it gone. Not much has reopened on Old Street and the yellow car is there with all its damage.

The main part in that story was the fact that cruise lines are not bringing in quality tourists and they are not spending money to boot....seen this happening all over the various Islands for about 10 years now and each season gets a little bit worse.....more's the pity.

Our first visit to SXM was via cruise ship but that was in 1991 and I know cruising has changed a lot since then. When I see the large tour buses, the 4-wheeler excursions, the pre-packaged tours to the beach, etc., I know some of the people on cruises are spending $$ but most are booking via the cruise line. I am not sure what a "quality tourist" actually is but I know the cruise lines used to play games to sucker people into booking the tours off the ship.

One popular restaurant in Simpson Bay is doing a beach chair/lunch combo thing with the cruise lines and on some days were handling around 200 patrons off the cruise ship.

Rosemary--was the store that sold glass jewelry on Old Street, was it open, did you see?? I LOVED that place. Although one can get their stuff mail order from Curacao I guess, although I haven't done that. I have a necklace set that I bought there, that I always get great complements on, as it is so unusual.

Yes, I think it was. At least I saw one store selling beautiful jewelry that was not gem stones.

Oh, that's GOOD news, if so!!!! Did it look to be glass jewelry??

FYI. Jean Pierre from Antoines has a little cafe now on Old Street. It is on the right side of the street just before the old yellow car and has tables out front. We went there for lunch a few weeks ago and he was delighted to see us. Can't now remember the name, but it is very French and very good. Only open for breakfast and lunch.

Thank you for posting this. We tried to find him in November but he was not open when we were in town. We knew the location and could see signs of his efforts but couldn’t find him or the shop open. We’ve known him since he was a very young man working as a waiter at the original Antoine’s. Will definitely see him next trip.

Jean Pierre only opened if a couple weeks before we found it, I believe in mid Feb.

anyone have a name of this Restaurant and approx where it is. French food? I'm not so familiar with this area but intend to get to know it better on next trip.

I thought that place was only coffee croissants, sandwiches, quiches and pastry. There were two on right side (if you're walking away from water and toward Back Street. This was the first one. Can't remember name either.

If the store you're thinking about was Elements, with the handmade glass by the artist on a different island, it has not reopened. (I didn't remember that it was Curaçao, but that sounds right.) We looked for it specifically when we were there in February. I think their storefront was still vacant. They had 2 locations and we also looked for their original store on Front Street near Antoine’s and that is gone too.

The couple running the stores had moved to the island at the request of the artist and didn't have any other ties there. If I remember correctly they had taken this on as an adventure after ending another career, so were near retirement age and had family in the US.

StMartinFan--yes, that is the name of it. Sorry to hear that it was another casualty of Irma...

Bran & RonDon: I believe Jean Pierre's cafe is called French Touch, and is on Old Street in Phillipsburg. He bought the place from the previous owner after it was damaged by Irma and renamed it. Guess he was bored after selling Antoines.

KitKat,

Thank you so much for your up-dates. Our daughter and SIL ran into him on the Front Street last summer but we completely missed JP despite our efforts in November.

We feared that ‘boredom’ might become an issue for him. He has worked at his restaurant trade since he was a very young man, never really knowing the pleasures of nights off at home with his now grown family. The sandwich shop, when he told us about his plans, sounded like it might be just the answer for him, although when he first spoke of it, we thought his plan was to become merely a lunch time waiter. But I’m not surprised that he now owns it. Once being your own boss it’s hard to be an underling.

Very happy for him and we will plan on seeing him for sure next trip, even if we have to camp out on his doorstep.

KitKat, was that the place with the pretty painted sign of a goose?

RonDon, I honestly don't know. I never paid much attention to the former cafe there, nor did I eat there.