Bones Rum is No More

It is with great sadness that we inform all of you that the Bones Rum location in Cruz Bay has closed its doors for good. Ok, maybe we’re being a tad dramatic, but we really liked this place.

For those of you not familiar with the Bones Rum shop, the concept is genius – you buy one of their frozen drinks and they hand you a bottle of Bones Rum. You can pour in as little or as much as you’d like. Come to think about it, maybe that was their demise … Ok, now which one of you guys (or gals) drank those poor people out of business?!

Perhaps Bones Rum is another casualty of the economy? Or perhaps there’s another reason behind it. All we know is that it’s at least the third business to close in the past few months. Cases By the Sea in Coral Bay closed its doors after Labor Day weekend and Cruz Bay Prime at the Westin closed for good this past summer.

There is a silver lining to this story, however. Well there’s actually two silver linings come to think of it.

1. The Bones Rum location in Charlotte Amalie is still open. It’s just across from the harbor near the Green House Restaurant. So you could stop there when you’re over in St. Thomas. (We highly suggest you do.)

2. There is now a pretty sweet piece of real estate available right in the heart of Cruz Bay. There really isn’t a better location on the island than the first floor of the closest building to the ferry dock!

If you could have it your way, what would you like to see in that space?

Update: We just saw this over on RumShopRyan’s Facebook page. He was able to find some answers. This is what he found:

I contacted Wayne, owner of Bones Rum along with his wife Cara, to find out more about the closing. I new that the rum brand had a strong following, so I had to find out why on Earth would they would close a great location like the store next to the Cruz Bay ferry dock.

Here’s what Wayne had to say…

“The real reason we moved out is simply the lease was a horrible lease and Matt (the previous owner of Bones Rum) did the lease.  The lease in St Thomas is not good either and I have gotten it straighten up so far.  I did try to work out something with the St. John property but it didn’t work out.  Like I told the land lord, a lease or any agreement has to be good for both parties and it cant be one sided.  They wanted a one sided agreement and it just didn’t work. Matt did this lease and was paying for the building’s maintenance, taxes, and insurance on the building which was prorated for the space.  I ask the owners several times to give me an offer on the building and that Cara and I would purchase the building and the owners would not do this.  In fact I tried about 5-6 times and they kept saying no.”

Wayne said that business is booming and that they have a lot of big things coming up, which I’m excited to tell you guys about soon. It’s just sad that greed and island politics had to get in the way of something that so many people love.

Bones Rum will continue to reside at its St. Thomas location on the Charlotte Amalie waterfront. Wayne is currently working with real estate agents on St. John and if he can find a good building to purchase he will.

 Interesting. 

Update #2: The info just keeps on flowing today.

We just learned what’s going into the space and from what we heard, we think you’re all going to like it. The full details are being kept under wraps, but we can tell you that the owner of Big Planet is involved.

There’s no need to worry – Big Planet will remain in its Mongoose Junction location. But Pretlow Majette, owner of Big Planet, did confirm that they are taking over the space formerly occupied by Bones Rum.

He was pretty mum on the details, but he did say it will be “something really cool from Big Planet.”

The store is expected to open around December 1. We’ll pass along more details when we get them.