Most of the Philipsburg boardwalk shuts when the last cruise passenger jogs back toward the pier, somewhere around five. Ocean Lounge, at the front of the Holland House Beach Hotel, runs until ten, which makes it the answer to the question of where to eat on Great Bay after dark. This is the polished end of the strip: a proper wine list, local seafood cooked with a European hand, and a chicken satay with peanut sauce that people single out ahead of the fish. Prices reflect all of that. But the tables sit directly on the boardwalk with the sand a step away, so it never stops being a beach bar, and the sunset from these seats is the one everybody else left before.
Filed under our Saint Martin rundown, where the rest of them live.
