Ric's Place, St. Maarten, Photo Gallery

Photo Gallery from . . .

Lagoon side of Airport Road just north of Simpson Bay drawbridge,

St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles

NOTE: Pictures will take a couple of minutes to load depending on your modem speed, but you'll like what you see. At the bottom of the page we've also posted some of our SCUBA pictures, and links to our favorite dive shops here on the island. ---Ric (founder and retired former owner)

TOP LEFT: Our dining room isn't as big as Texas, but it isn't any Rhode Island, either. You'll have plenty of room to stretch out, relax, and enjoy our great food. TOP RIGHT: Our main bar & wide screen TV room, separate from the dining room, has lots of large-screen TVs and plenty of seats for everyone to enjoy the game. (Of course you can have food here, too.) These folks were in for the NCAA finals. You'll find Ric's at Simpson Bay just north of the drawbridge on the lagoon side of Airport road. Here, you'll find great conversation with folks from the world over -- and some great cooking. Our TVs let you view all major US sporting events -- and a lot of not-so-major ones too. We don't inflate our prices for the World Series, Superbowl, Indianapolis 500, or anything else -- you'll always find us reasonable.

ABOVE LEFT and RIGHT: Our terrace seating puts you just a few feet away from Simpson Bay Lagoon, and gives you the view you see to the right. In season, you'll see dozens of megayachts and super-megayachts, some more than 200 feet long, a stone's throw away.

ABOVE LEFT, our Dart Bar includes not just a great regulation-size dartboard, but its own bar. And of course, its own large-screen TV. Enjoy a game of darts, have a drink, and watch TV right here in paradise. What could be better? ABOVE RIGHT: Getting out of drawbridge traffic, that's what. Pull out of line. That's us, just to the left. Our sign is just to the left of the palm tree. Who needs traffic when you can relax with us?

ABOVE LEFT is our building, with a closer look at the right. Lots of parking.

ABOVE LEFT is your seat. Get your ticket; we promise to keep the beer cold. That's Kathy and Ric, the original owners, on the right, now retired and relaxing. Tamara has kept Ric's recipes intact -- we wouldn't have it any other way. As always, Ric's food is 100% fresh and delicious. Our promise: you'll love our food!

ABOVE LEFT: Our burgers are the most sensuous, delectable, wicked things you will ever touch your tongue to. Well, almost, but you get the drift. Blended with lots of Angus, the world's best-tasting beef, and voted #1 in the Caribbean by the experts. But the real experts will be your taste buds. You gotta try these! For taste-tempting pictures of our Tex-Mex specialties, see our lunch-dinner menu. Our servers are ready to pamper you with the best American and Tex/Mex specialties you'll find anywhere in the Caribbean. Come in and say hello! These folks (above right) did, and they've been coming back for years. You will, too!

Scuba Pictures

We love SCUBA and St. Maarten is a perfect place for it. Below are some of our SCUBA pictures.

ISLAND DIVE SHOPS

Lots of folks have asked about the best dive shops here on the island. What follows are our favorites. Tell them Ric Hetzel sent you. Hopefully they'll treat you nicely anyway...

Trade Winds Dive Center - Oyster Pond

http://www.st-maarten-st-martin.com/TradeWinds/index.html
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Ocean Explorers - Simpson Bay

http://www.stmaartendiving.com/index.html

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Dive Safaris - Philipsburg & Simpson Bay

http://diveguide.com/divesafaris/

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Note About our Scuba Pictures: Our original pictures are high-resolution beauties -- but many folks still peruse websites with 28K or 56K modems which don't download 700K pictures very fast, especially if there are lots of them displayed. Besides, Web images are typically shown on screens that can't handle anything with resolution better than 72 dpi. So, we're posting "lower resolution" pictures here. Our advice: the best way to see our magical underwater world is to fly down here and jump in the water. (And visit us before and/or after.) That's not a bad idea either!

Nurse Shark Orangespot Filefish

Reefscape

French Angelfish

We've posted two whole pages of great scuba pictures. Click here -- for the first page.

Then... Click HERE for more scuba pictures.

Download Ric's Scuba Pictures in Jeff Berger's

"Butterflies, Beasts, & Beneath" Screensaver

Jeff Berger, who has a large St. Maarten website, convinced us to donate several of our best SCUBA pictures from St. Maarten waters for his "Butterflies, Beasts, and Beneath" St. Maarten screensaver. Part of the proceeds will go to benefit the St. Maarten Zoo, which can use the money. The screensaver sequences beautiful pictures on your PC every few seconds when you're not working (which will happen more often once you see the pictures). Besides my SCUBA pictures, there are many shots from the Butterfly Farm here and from the Zoo itself -- somewhere around 40 pictures total. You can download it from Jeff's site by clicking here. Click the BACK button on your browser to come back to Ric's. The screensaver costs $11.99. Ric's shots alone are worth 10 times that, particularly the shot of the barracuda that was upset Ric was in his neighborhood.

Updated July 27, 2006b