CHEESEBURGERS IN PARADISE

Lara asked if she could have lobster everytime we went out to eat. We assured her that we would let her get lobster before the vacation was over. Dominick took advantage of the local cuisine by ordering cheeseburgers everywhere we went. To be fair, both Dominick and Lara ordered Shrimp Alfredo at Mim’s when we met Gerie’s on-line buddies for dinner.

Anyway, when we stopped at “ The Delly Deck” on our first day in St. Thomas, Dominick ordered a cheeseburger for lunch and declared that it was the best cheeseburger he ever had. After ordering cheeseburgers at other eating establishments, Dominick decided that he would rate the cheeseburgers at as many places in St. Thomas as possible. At Molly Malone’s he took advantage of the ‘build your own burger’ and ordered sides of chili, salsa, sour cream, and something. He declined the side of avocado. He thought that Molly Malone’s cheeseburger was fun to build and sloppy to eat. It was more fun than tasty but it rated high on his list. He tried the cheeseburger at the Shipwreck Tavern who touted the ‘best cheeseburger in the Virgin Islands‘. What they might have lacked in quality they surely made up for in quantity. The Shipwreck’s cheeseburger was 3/4 of a pound of meat on a huge bun. The cheeseburger at Duffy’s Love Shack was a favorite and so was the Greenhouse and Gladys’. The great burger that Gerie and I had last year at Uncle Buddy’s at Coki beach was a big disappointment this year. It was smaller and not as tasty as we remembered.

I tried to get Dominick to write his own trip report and include his St. Thomas cheeseburger ratings but I guess it sounded too much like a ‘what I did over my summer vacation’ school assignment. At any rate, for those of you with 14 year old kids who will visit St. Thomas in the near future, here is Dominick’s list of best cheeseburger choices in order:

1. Delly Deck
2. Duffy’s Love Shack
3. Molly Malone’s
4. Iggy’s
5. Gladys’s
6. The Greenhouse
7. Shipwreck Tavern

Our big, fancy, dinner was at Mafoli’s overlooking Charlotte Amalie on our last night in St. Thomas. Lara got her lobster and Dominick had Shrimp Alfredo.

LARA GOT LEI’D AT DUFFY’S LOVE SHACK

Duffy’s Love Shack is indeed a shack located in Red Hook on one side of a parking lot. In the late afternoon when the insurance company, bank, and attorneys go home for the evening, Duffy’s Love Shack places tables and chairs in the parking lot expanding their usable square footage threefold.

The bar and grille are located inside the shack and whenever anyone orders one of their premium drinks, Duffy’s plays the music to ‘Jaws’ or ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’. Then you hear Jimmy Buffet singing either ‘Fins’ or ‘When the Volcano Blows’. If you order cokes or ice tea or lemonade you get a colorful, plastic necklace with a smiley face on one side and ‘Official Duffy’s Love Shack Attitude Adjustment’ written on the other. If you order a specialty, tropical, rum drink the waiter serves them in a ceramic glass in the shape of a parrot or monkey or other exotic shape. The waiter then places a lei around your neck and slaps a sticker on the chest of your shirt or blouse that reads, “I got lei’d at Duffy’s Love Shack.” Cute play on words. The waiters are not the least bit shy in slapping the sticker on ladies' blouses regardless of how well endowed the ladies may be.

“I want a lei and a sticker!” Lara told us. “Only I don’t want the sticker put on me. I want to bring it to school and tape it to the inside of my locker so that I can show all my friends that I got lei’d at Duffy’s Love Shack.”

“I don’t think so!” I said in my best authoritarian father voice. “At 13 you shouldn’t even know what it means.”

“I know more than you think, Daddy.”

Just what every father wants to hear from his 13 year old daughter. Anyway, we WERE on vacation and the kids were having a ball so Gerie bought Lara a ceramic, parrot glass and Dominick a ‘speak-no-evil’ ceramic, monkey glass. They both got ‘lei’d’ by the waiter who gave them their stickers instead of slapping them on, saving me a broken nose after I punched out the waiter.

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

Well, after 2 weeks of fun, sun, and oh yeah, did I mention the magnificent water? our vacation was winding down. We had seen Megan’s Bay from Drake’s Seat, had more than our fair share of Milk Shakes at Udder Delight. MMMMMmmmm! Lara got her Lobster dinner. We even made it to St. John this year on the car ferry. We all got great tans and basked in the Caribbean Sea to our heart’s content. It was a great vacation with my kids. I was glad I could share it with them. But, alas, all good things must end.

When I went back to work, I couldn’t resist wearing one more Hawaiian Shirt Post It that read “359”.