By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 27, 2023 –A memorial service for Mr. Frank Minaya, the late legendary owner of the renowned BANANA BOAT nightclub in Nassau, Bahamas, in the 1960s and 1970s, will be held at Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive, in New York City, starting at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.
Details for the memorial service were released by Mr. Minaya’s widow, Dr. Dana Minaya, who noted that a “Repast and Dance Celebration” will be held following the service and will last until 8:00pm.”
Mr. Minaya was extremely popular in The Bahamas, which he considered to be his “second home”, as noted in the program for an event held in New York in 2001 when he was honoured by the Bahamian-American Association of New York. He was an active member of the association for many years.
During the height of its popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, The BANANA BOAT for young people of my generation was a nightly experience, a fact which in later years after it had closed resulted in a group of persons who frequented the club establishing an annual Banana Boat Reunion, which subsequently became and still is one of the most popular events in Nassau during the Christmas season.
As I noted in an article that was published in The Nassau Guardian on December 12, 2003, those were the days when it was still safe to walk the streets of New Providence en route home from The Banana Boat at 2 o’clock in the morning and not be concerned at all about being assaulted or robbed at gunpoint.
Businesswoman Pat Mortimer, long-time president of the Banana Boat Reunion Committee, noted at the time: “Going to The Banana Boat was a must. That was the climax of your week. You had to go to The Boat, or your week was not complete.”
Located on the corner of Crawford Street and Farrington Road, the building that became The Banana Boat was built in 1959 by the late Edward “Teddy ” Foster and Andrew Conliffe and was known as The Chantel Cocktail Lounge. The two employees in the Accounts Department of the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation had their sights set on establishing an elite club, where patrons could relax and enjoy themselves in sedate and pleasant surroundings; however, The Chantel never sparked any real interest among the nightclub-going crowd.
Teddy and Andrew eventually concluded that their plans for the club were not working out and decided to rent it out to Frank Minaya, a New Yorker who had visited The Bahamas as a tourist, fell in love with the country and decided to open a business there. Frank had acquired some experience in the nightclub business in New York, and in a very short period of time he turned the staid and dull Chantel into one of the most popular nightspots in town.
To accomplish this metamorphosis, he changed the club’s name to The Banana Boat. Whenever “The Boat sailed”, the popular vernacular used those days, frequently “on board” were many individuals — men and women — who today are pillars of Bahamian society, professionally as well as socially.
During his stay in The Bahamas, Frank Minaya also produced a full-length feature film called BANANA BOAT BEAT.
