This brewery helped hurricane-ravaged St. John put itself back together

The Virgin Islands is haunted by the ghosts of failed restaurants

The restaurant where chef Patrick Allen works survived a devastating fire and two Category 5 hurricanes. On some days, when he arrives to cook up mahi mahi tacos for a mixed crowd of tourists and locals, he wears a T-shirt with a severe weather logo and the words: THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

“It adds a little levity to the situation,” he says. Allen works at the Tap Room, a pub and brewery that’s now thriving on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a territory hard-hit by Hurricane Irma in September 2017. But if you want