East Moon Has Lost Its Roof

The popular East Moon Chinese Restaurant and Bar in Road View has lost its Spanish-style clay tile roof. Workmen this week removed most of the bright orange clay tiles that have covered this building for about the last three decades. The restaurant and bar is closed and is due to reopen in early May. Clay tile roofs are notoriously leaky in Barbados as well susceptible to termite infestation. It was this deadly combination at East Moon that finally forced them to literally raise the roof. No word yet on what it will be replaced with yet but the suspicion is - not more clay tiles. Mostly likely the new roof will of the ubiquitous galvanized iron variety.

This will be a return to a material of a previous era when the building last served as the residence of the Gilkes family of Road View back in the 1970s. Since then, this landmark in the Mullins Bay area has been used for several purposes including a gourmet restaurant and wedding venue, a doctor’s office and a Masonic lodge. As part of the renovation for the gourmet restaurant the coral stones which make up the walls of the building were exposed and the tile roof added. The property was also beautified with lush tropical gardens. Although the gourmet restaurant never really took off its mark on the property will remain even as we witness the demise of the clay tile roof.

With the new roof East Moon will be able to utilize more space in the building for its dining room and bustling takeout business. Being the first of only two Chinese restaurants north of Holetown (the other was recently opened one mile away by the traffic lights in Speight town) East Moon is popular with visitors to the area and also locals. It can become very busy especially when guests at big resorts like Almond Beach Village in Heywoods get tired of the same old all-inclusive fare.


Meanwhile, in other news from Road View, the strip between The Pink House villa and Sandridge Hotel can now properly be called the Road View Karaoke Strip since it is now possible to hit a Karaoke bar within that quarter of a mile at least five nights a week. The action begins on Monday nights at the Surf & Lime Bar and Restaurant (opposite the defunct King’s Beach Hotel), then moves a few properties south to the Chattel House Bar & Grill on Wednesday nights, then next door to the East Moon at the Sunset Bar & Grill on Thursday nights, and back north on Friday nights to Toppin’s Bar on the corner of the main road and Cemetery Lane, and then back to the Chattel House Bar & Grill on Saturday night. You know there is a lot of bar-hopping going on when you keep hearing the same renditions of “Pretty Blue Eyes Please Come Out Tonight,” “El Paso City By The Rio Grande,” and “Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss Me.”