There must be something about the name Las Vegas that makes people misbehave, even if Las Vegas happens to be in Jamaica. In fact, the misbehavior level is probably double when Las Vegas is IN Jamaica!
The sign says it’s a cafe but we only experienced it as a bar. It wasn’t until daylight hours that I realized there’s a whole seating area behind the bar right on the beach that seemed to get fairly busy during the day.
The night my Canadian friend, a Jamaican friend, and I hit up Las Vegas was a Tuesday night and after driving by here at least once a day/night for ten days it never appeared to get busier than about six people. So as this story goes to show you the party only comes when WE hit a place, even if the crowd only stays at six people!
The music was really lame and the bartender was somewhat unfriendly until the loudmouth over here told her to put on some decent music. She had a laptop hooked up to the sound system and proceeded to play some dancehall music which livened up the mood a little. Once the bartender and some of the patrons saw that we actually knew the words we suddenly weren’t strangers anymore. It seemed funny that once we didn’t act like outsiders the whole little crowd seemed to loosen up quite a bit.
I can’t remember how the topic of reggae artist, Snow came up but it did and it opened a wide debate about what Snow was actually famous for besides his song “Informer”, to which I STILL don’t sing the correct lyrics. And then the topic of the popular hashtag #MisheardLyrics came up because of that song and this was a live (tipsy) tweet I made from Las Vegas. I didn’t even remember that I tweeted this until I found it weeks later in my Twitter feed lol.
As the night played on and the vibe got more crazy between six – yes, only six people – I do remember doing the splits at one point. I remember the bartender actually smiling a couple times. And I definitely remember my Jamaican friend introducing me to everyone as Busy Signal’s wife.
There was also an older gentleman sitting next to Brenda most of the night who also seemed to double as the man designated to feed everyone. He disappeared into the kitchen at one point and whipped up some of the BEST, most yummiest fish I’ve ever eaten anywhere on the island. He didn’t make plates for us but I distinctly remember him hand-feeding us from his fork until the food was gone. Delicious!
This night turned into a noisy, chaotic night full of seven (yes seven) flasks of rum at an otherwise quiet little roadside stop and we were quite proud of ourselves for bringing everyone out of their shells. I have no idea what time it was when we went home but it was late and I did NOT drive my car.
These next two pictures show how the night started and how it ended. All fun and games which ended up in a one-eye-closed and weird side eye pose. And yes it was chilly that night, hence the hoodies.
On our way home I’ve never laughed so hard in my life over the bright red color of wieners in Jamaica. Why did we laugh so hard? Because the Jamaican who drove us had no idea what a wiener was lol! When he asked what is a wiener I couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard, and had tears streaming down my face.
I remember that Las Vegas bar normally closes around 10:00 pm because Brenda and I went back the next night to actually relax and not drink. When we pulled up that second night we saw it was the same bartender and we actually ducked down in the car because we were embarrassed about the night before lol. When we finally got up the nerve to go back inside it was 9:30 pm and she kissed her teeth when she saw us. So I made sure to tell her this will NOT be a repeat of the night before and we’ll get out when she tells us to!
In the end the bartender ended up being a pretty great girl. She was awesome and smiley the second night and then again on another time I stopped in alone during the day. That time she was like, “Hey girl!” with a huge smile so I guess it was all good lol.