It’s been open for more than 50 years, but Caribbean Social Club is suddenly the hottest bar in Brooklyn.
On Thursday night, the Puerto Rican watering hole on Grand Street in South Williamsburg was rammed with revelers eager to catch a glimpse of its octogenarian owner, Maria Antonia “Toñita” Cay.
Cay, 85, has become a sensation since her appearance in Bad Bunny’s splashy Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday, during which she was seen serving up a shot of liquor to the Latin superstar.
“We came to meet Toñita,” patron Jaccia Sepulveda Parra, 34, told The Post as she sipped on rum and listened to Reggaeton music blasting from the speakers.
The lawyer, who lives in Chile, was visiting New York with a pal, and the pair had braved icy temperatures to trek to the unassuming establishment.
It turns out they weren’t disappointed, with Cay happy to entertain the starstruck tourists as other customers, old and new, danced, drank, and played dominoes and pool.
Jose Humberto Perez, a longtime patron of Caribbean Social Club, told The Post that the halftime show has officially turned Toñita into “a movie star,” saying she could end up “at the Oscars” if Bad Bunny ever decides to make a film.
Bad Bunny — real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — visits the bar whenever he’s in the Big Apple and has clearly become enamored with its owner.
His first publicized appearance at Caribbean Social Club came in 2022, when he celebrated the release of his album Un Verano Sin Ti (A Summer Without You).
“Oh, God, look who’s here?” Perez recalled thinking when he saw the music superstar show up for a drink. “I said, ‘The women are gonna go ballistic in there. They’re going to go crazy.’”
Perez, 63, was pleasantly surprised that Bad Bunny had popped into the bar by himself.
“No entourage… Completely alone,” Perez stated. “He’s very respectful… a very humble human being. And Toñita is the same way.”
Brooklyn-born Perez, who is of Puerto Rican descent and served two decades in the military, has been frequenting Caribbean Social Club for more than 15 years.
“This is the last bar of Puerto Rican heritage that we have,” he explained, saying some of South Williamsburg’s longtime Puerto Rican residents have been pushed out of the neighborhood due to gentrification.
“There used to be over 20 or 30 bars here, but when gentrification came, a lot of places had to close,” he explained. “This is the last bastion that we have here. This is the only place where you get $3 beers and $4 shots. You can’t beat that with a baseball bat.”
According to court records, Cay bought the building that houses her bar back in 1974 — but she had been operating a social club for years before that. In the early 1970s, she sponsored a local baseball team and would serve free food and drinks to players and cheerleaders after the games.
The bar owner reportedly refused an offer to sell her building for an eye-popping $9 million, with her manager, Giovanni Gonzalez, 37, telling The Post: “She doesn’t care about the money, she cares about her community… She is a mother to all of us. She feels a big responsibility to all of us… If she leaves, people have nowhere to go.”
Gonzalez compared Caribbean Social Club to a church, “without the religious part.”
Every Sunday at 1 p.m., Cay hands out free food to homeless people “in little boxes,” Gonzalez stated.
On Thursday night, when The Post popped by, Cay’s hospitality was also evident. Complimentary plates of white rice and black beans were available to anyone who wanted an appetizer to team with their cheap drinks.
“You can see a lawyer playing dominoes here with a homeless guy,” Gonzalez said. “There is no separation of class or age, and she (Cay) created this organically.”
In between the many paintings and old photographs that decorate the walls of Caribbean Social Club, there are also awards, including one from the City of New York honoring Cay as an “Outstanding Citizen” in 1998.
Gonzalez accompanied Cay to the Super Bowl in San Francisco last Sunday, while dozens of her longtime patrons watched in the bar back home.
Maribel Ramirez, a 61-year-old ICU nurse, told The Post that locals heard rumors that Cay would cameo in Bad Bunny’s halftime show, causing crowds to form inside the establishment.
“I watched the halftime show here,” Eitan Tovar, a 22-year-old Colombian who moved to New York last month and works in a tattoo store next door, stated. “The place was packed, people were trying to come inside, there was a line.”
With word of mouth spreading about the beloved bar since the Super Bowl, lines and crowds could become par for the course.
However, some are enticed more for the authentic atmosphere and cheap drinks than they are for any Bad Bunny buzz.
Nicola Palmisano, 29, an Italian sous chef at Cipriani Downtown, was sweating in the kitchen on Sunday and missed Cay’s cameo in Bad Bunny’s show.
But on Thursday night, he decided to venture to The Caribbean Social Club simply to enjoy a New York gem.
“I really like the vibe,” Palmisano told The Post. “It’s like a neighborhood bar. So I like it.”
