Restaurant Review: Billy Joe's on the Beach, Port Lucaya, Grand Bahama Island

Grand Bahama Island is a pretty quiet place, especially in the Port Lucaya area, where I spent a few days last week with Cooper, Mike, Alicia, Jen and Bill. Supposedly this is also the quiet season - it'll pick up a bit at the end of the month.

It's so nice, though, just as it is. One of the highlights of our trip was Billy Joe's. It's just about a mile down the beach from the place where we stayed, and walking a mile down a super soft sand beach is not exactly a hardship.

We rented our condos from a friend of Mike's, who told us that we'd probably have the best food of our trip at Billy Joe's. He was right. What he didn't mention was that we'd also have the best pina coladas that any of us had had - ever. And between the six of us, we've had a lot of pina coladas. The drinks were creamy and cold, but not icy - they had a milkshake quality that I think it would be hard to duplicate.

Every morning we went to breakfast, then down to the beach for a few hours, then around two we'd make the trek down to Billy Joe's. We spent our afternoons sitting on the covered deck on the left in the picture above, watching the water, drinking fruity drinks and Kaliks, and eating lightly fried red snapper, fried grouper, and conch - both grilled with vegetables, butter and garlic and also in a ceviche salad with peppers, tomatoes and spicy sauce.

I'll write more about our specific meals at Billy Joe's later - I have big plans for three posts that summarize the trip as a whole, but I'm waiting for everybody else's pictures (I only took 12 pictures all week. I think Alicia took 212.)

But let me assure you, it was a rough life. The weather, the view, the outrageous freshness of the fish - pure island. I certainly wouldn't be sorry to go back...and anybody visiting the Freeport/Port Lucaya area has to try Billy Joe's. You just have to.