Barefoot Buddha, St. Thomas

Zan grew up in St. Thomas, and that’s where we met, when I moved there in middle school. After I moved away a few years later, she always spoke about meeting friends for coffee at Barefoot Buddha, across from Havensight (a collection of stores, restaurants and bars right where the cruise ships dock). It wasn’t built until after I’d moved away, and so, when Kiyo and I spent a few days in St. Thomas in March (generously hosted by Zan’s parents at their idyllic home) we decided to check it out for breakfast.

Let me just quote this Yelper to illustrate what happened to us when we set out, and to prove we were not alone in our mistake:

“The map for this place is completely wrong! We were visiting the area and were excited to go here and followed the map through some seedy parts of Charlotte Amalie until we called and realized we were very far away and had to walk about 25 minutes more because unlike the map, this is not in the downtown historic area but near the cruise ship dock.”

I typed the address from Yelp into my phone and just followed it without thinking. Since I’m familiar with the island, I realized that we were being brought to the wrong area, but by the time I noticed, we were already stuck within the paralyzing web of unmarked, one-way streets downtown. I kid you not, none of the streets have one-way signs, and yet they are one-ways. Even Zan, who was born and raised on the island, has gotten tickets for turning the wrong way down these streets. When we asked her father about it later, he said “you just have to know,” and obviously we were clueless! Not to mention, I was driving their family’s car and in St. Thomas, they drive on the left!

So, Kiyo and I spent an extremely stressful twenty minutes winding up and down these streets, coming head to head with oncoming traffic and being yelled at by locals. Since everything seemed to be one-way in the wrong direction, we couldn’t get out! It was embarrassing and by the time we FINALLY arrived to Barefoot Buddha we were hangry, stressed, and at each other’s throats. We ordered our food and sat down at a table to wait, both of us silently fuming. That’s when I saw the sign the restaurant had propped up on a hanging shelf: “IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO START THE DAY OVER” The Barefoot Buddha had already imparted its wisdom on us! I had to laugh, and once Kiyo saw it too, we both realized we were on vacation, on a gorgeous island, with nothing to worry about all day except which beach we wanted to go to. It was still morning and we did indeed “start over,” with good attitudes. The delicious food and coffee definitely helped too!

I like to get a sweet drink with salty food, so I can have the best of both worlds. I had a caramel latte that really sweet and delicious.

In our usual fashion, we split two things so we wouldn’t each have to choose between them. Both on everything bagels, the first breakfast sandwich was the Bigfoot: egg frittata, smoked turkey, turkey bacon, cream cheese, sharp cheddar cheese, chipotle aioli, tomato coulis and fresh spinach. The second was only a bit different; the Breakfast Bagel Sandwich with egg frittata, turkey bacon, sharp cheddar cheese, sun-dried tomato schmear, tomato-onion coulis and fresh spinach. They were honestly so similar that I didn’t prefer one over the other, but they were both really good. Even though there was cheese and the bagels don’t offer much nutrition at all, they felt healthy and light; perfect for before the beach!

Barefoot Buddha

Open: Monday – Saturday 7 a.m. – 6 p.m., Sunday 8 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Location: 9715 Estate Thomas, Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands 00802 Phone: (340) 777-3668