By Alexander Britell and Guy Britton

It’s been open just three weeks but you can already feel it.

Even in the late afternoon on a Tuesday, you know a hotspot when you see it.

It’s sleek, it’s instantly hip and it’s, well, Roxxy Beach.

There’s a special VIP room on the second level.

The product of a Las Vegas-based development team, this newest beach bar in St Maarten is already one of the coolest in the Caribbean, a crisply designed beach bar-meets-beach lounge where you can spend all day and then spend all night, too.

This is a new kind of beach bar for St Maarten, a sophisticated, chic destination bar that’s on its way to becoming the island’s most happening lounge, with influences from everywhere from Ibiza to St Barth.

There are two bars, in fact. One is the main outlet, with a second-floor VIP room with a view of the ocean, joined by dining tables and the main cocktail counter.

And then there’s a classic Caribbean beach shack, a low-key wooden rum bar set right on the sand.

And yes, it’s a lounge, meaning you can get a chair and put down roots for the afternoon on a brilliant patch of white sand on Simpson Bay.

And then there’s Chef Davide Castro’s standout food, a mix of everything from uramaki sushi rolls )with inspired recipes like “sake mousse” and “crunchy berries” to salads, small bites and brick oven pizza.

There’s a charming little beach shack to the side.

The cocktail program is broad, from the Shi Shi, a mix of Frangelico, prosecco, lime juice and mint to the “bamboo colada,” a mix of rum, coconut, lime juice and passion fruit.

That’s along with a robust rum list that includes some very good rhum agricoles.

Every Sunday is a regular event, when DJs descend on the sand and this corner of Simpson Bay turns into a full-fledged beach party.

Here in St Maarten 2.0, there’s a new energy, a new dynamism, as the island looks forward and imagines what’s possible.

And places like this are right at the heart of it.

For more, visit Roxxy Beach.

— CJ