July 4, 2008 — When Esquire Magazine came out recently with its Top 100 list of bars in America, Skinny Legs Bar and Restaurant in Coral Bay made the cut, the only Virgin Islands watering hole on the list.
Skinny Legs is a St. John institution opened in 1991 by Moe Chabuz and the late Doug Sica, whose slender gams gave the bar and restaurant its name.
Sica died in 2006 but Chabuz is still at work keeping things going.
Business is good, he said, but it wasn't always that way. When Chabuz and Sica opened the bar, Chabuz said, "we struggled. It was hard."
The first month they were open the two took all the money they made to buy a satellite dish so they could air sports programming. Six months later they opened the kitchen, which still has a simple menu that focuses on burgers, fish and chicken.
Monday night at the movies is another early innovation that continues.
Sica had been a bartender at the infamous Back Yard Bar in Cruz Bay, long ago closed.
Chabuz came with a different set of skills. Although he had a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he learned cost-controlling while working at what was the Hyatt Regency St. John. It's now the Westin Resort and Villas, but when Chabuz first went there to work in the mid-1980s scraping plaster off the floor it was the Virgin Grand Hotel.
Chabuz arrived on St. John in 1979 with a thirst for adventure in his blood. Like most recent arrivals, he did odd jobs and worked in restaurants. Stints at the long-closed Lobster Hut and the Ship's Lantern are on his resume.
He was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany to Polish parents who had spent the Second World War years in forced labor.
Family friends left the camp for Australia and Canada, but Chabuz's father waited till he got clearance for America. The family immigrated to Lawrence, Mass., in 1951.
"He wanted opportunity," Chabuz said.
While Chabuz, 58, puts in long hours at the bar and restaurant, he still has time for family matters. Married in 2006 to Toni Lacer, he's also the father of two. Melanie, 35, lives on Long Island and has two children. Carolyn, 15, is on St. Thomas.
Along the way, he developed a taste for running marathons and has competed in Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, and Victoria, British Columbia.
"And in 2007, I did New York," he said proudly.
Skinny Legs is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the winter and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the summer. Call 779-4982.
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