Daily News Photos by SEAN McCOY Betsy Sheahan greets a customer with the familiar hug many patrons have grown accustomed to during the last 10 years.

ST. THOMAS - A Frenchtown institution is no more.

Betsy's Bar, which for 12 years has offered inexpensive food and drink in a homestyle, rustic, indoor-outdoor pub, closed its doors on Thursday night for the last time in its Frenchtown location.

Betsy Sheahan, who has owned and operated the bar for the last decade, said that it was closed because the property owners Arquet Industries would not renew her lease.

"I guess they felt that the building needed repair and they will help out," Sheahan said, referring to new tenants the Pony Parlor.

But on Thursday night, hundreds of Betsy's patrons flooded the open-air pub for one last time.

Sergio Ruano and Elizabeth Aubain during the Last Dance party on Sept 21.

"This has been a refuge for a lot of people. Good people, bad people, happy people, sad people," said Helen Baker, who has lived her entire life on St. Thomas. "I'm really upset."

For many patrons, Sheahan provided motherly guidance and friendship and was much more than a bartender.

"I always have said that if you take care of the community, they will take care of you," Sheahan said. "They did take care of me. They made me cry hard on Thursday. It felt like a big family."

Sheahan said that she worked in Frenchtown at other bars for 10 years before opening her own bar there. Her business philosophy was to offer a place for people to unwind, good food and low prices.

"It was a workingman's bar," she said. "I had cheap prices, happy hour all the time."

Betsy's clientele ran the gamut of backgrounds. Black, white, born-here or born there, nearly anyone could be found at Betsy's on any given night. Gov. John deJongh Jr. stopped by at her Last Dance, a party thrown the week before she closed on Thursday.

Police officers, teachers, sailors and lawyers mingled there on her final night of business when hundreds of people showed up to say farewell to a much beloved nightspot. Billiard balls cracked on the two faded pool tables and music was drowned out by the din of conversation.

Then, for the first time in anyone's memory, Betsy's ran out of beer. It would not be replaced.

"One of the reasons I came to the islands six years ago is because this existed," Marianne Robinson said. "When I'm here, I know we can all get along. Maybe this is the last vestige of that."

Many patrons voiced their concern that the ramshackle Caribbean bars that have appealed to so many in the region are gradually being squeezed out of business.

Sheahan said that, while she has not yet found a new location for her business, she has not given up hope in finding a new place for her bar. For now, she will take a break.

"I'm going to take a vacation, sit under a waterfall in Dominica, take long walks and hope God will tell me what to do next," she said.

- Contact Sean McCoy at 774-8772 ext. 365 or e-mail smccoy@dailynews.vi.