If this is a dream.  Please do not wake me.

Tough day at the office. Stanley's Welcome Bar. ©2011 Carlton Grooms

I have been in the West Indies now for over a week and besides my constant twitter updates, I have withheld some of the great stories I’ve been crafting. Until now. Yesterday at Stanley’s Welcome Bar I had this max relax moment that I felt I had to share today.

My story starts with rounds of cheese burgers, eleven to be exact. Come to find out Stanley’s (which just made Travel + Leisures list of top beach bars) makes a great burger. By rounds of cheese burgers, I mean like rounds of shots. We bought them for the bar like tequila. People thought we had come up with our own new shot. When the actual food showed up they just started howling with laughter.

Food was the perfect counterbalance to the painkillers, tequila sunrises, Shaefer Beer (can you believe they had that!), and Daiquiri’s that were ordered, consumed and replenished. The staff was friendly and when the shift changed it felt like we were losing a family member.

Stanley’s Welcome Bar is a typical Caribbean beach bar business formula. Find the perfect beach, build a shack, don’t spend too much on it (or it won’t be authentic), stock it with chill bartenders and cold beer. Then you create one rum drink you can call your own and wait for beach bums like me to show up. I’m thinking I need to open my own place.

Sometimes words will only take you so far. I’ve included a few extra pictures for you today. Enjoy.

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