ST. THOMAS – Percy Taylor sits at a small round table covered by a white and red checkered tablecloth. Balloons cling to the wall behind him, drooping the way balloons do the day after a party.
“I am now working on a thing in my head to start doing more dances, bring bands,” Taylor says, obviously excited. “I am thinking of bringing a band out of Haiti.”
It hasn’t even been 24 hours since he celebrated his 90th birthday here, and already Taylor is planning the next party at Percy’s Bus Stop. The owner of the iconic bar and restaurant located on St. Thomas’ Veteran’s Drive says he has no plans to slow down.
“My theory is, and I got it from an older friend of mine, Mr. Penn. Mr. Penn was close to 100 and I was a younger man. And his theory was, ‘I’m not going to rust out. I’m going to wear out,’” Taylor says laughing.
Born on the island of Monserrat, Taylor says his move to St. Thomas in 1953 was a happy accident. At that time, most men his age were moving to London, the city desperate for workers to help rebuild following World War II. Taylor says he reluctantly planned to do the same, until he struck up a conversation with a man passing through Monserrat on his travels.
“He said, ‘why do you want to go to England? England is cold and dreary. Why don’t you come to St. Thomas?’” Taylor remembers. “I said, ‘I don’t know nobody in St. Thomas.’ And he said, ‘well you know me.’”
So, he booked passage to St. Thomas.
Taylor’s first job was as a dishwasher at a restaurant in what is now Crown Bay. From there he worked as a busboy, waiter, and taxi driver before he and a friend decided they would try opening a bar and restaurant on Coki Point.
“We did some crazy things,” he says. “Because I am a dreamer. I love playing with things that people think can’t work.”
Knowing this about Taylor, it’s no surprise that he only saw opportunity in the broken-down red double-decker London Transit bus at his mechanic friend’s shop, brought to the island as part of a promotional campaign by the West Indies Corporation.
“Everything started from the bus,” he says. “I just expanded, expanded, expanded.”
Percy’s Bus Stop sits across from the seaplane terminal on Veterans Drive. You can’t miss the red double-decker bus out front. But you might miss what’s hidden behind – a sprawling indoor space with a bar, bandstand, and dance floor.
“It became too congested inside of it,” Taylor says of the bus. “After a point, most of my friends would communicate that new people who came couldn’t fit inside the bus, and they would complain, ‘only some of your friends can go inside the bus.’ So, then I expanded.”
Since it opened in 1974, Percy’s Bus Stop has lived several lives, expanding in a makeshift way to accommodate Taylor’s ideas.
“I did that because, well, then it mainly became a dance spot. We had what was called Sunday school. Every Sunday we would have a dance,” he says, recalling groups like Jam Band and Mandingo Brass who used to perform.
Each new element of Percy’s Bus Stop seems to have been introduced without much regard for cohesion, yet somehow it all works. The space feels comfortable, familiar even for a first-time customer. And that is what matters to Taylor.
“I like a rustic feel. This is an island; it has that island thing,” he says. “When you come here don’t look for bling-bling. I’m not bling-bling, I don’t want bling-bling.”
Fifty years later, Taylor says he is proud of the space he’s built and the community it’s fostered, a community that was on display this past weekend.
Despite the rain, friends and family flocked to Percy’s Bus Stop this past weekend to celebrate Taylor’s entry into the ninth decade of his life. Taylor said he was impressed by the turnout, and that it made him especially happy to see his children and grandchildren helping behind the bar.
But Taylor isn’t worried about his children taking over, or what will happen to Percy’s Bus Stop when he’s gone.
“I don’t even have that in my mind,” he says. “I do the best I can, you know. You do the best you can, and you leave it.”
Taylor says his mentality is as long as Percy is around, Percy’s Bus Stop will be too.
