Entertainment in Puerto Rico
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Calypso Tropical Café
Wall-to-wall suntans, svelte girls in bikini tops, bare-chested blokes nursing cold beers, and syncopated reggae music drifting out beneath the sun-dappled palm trees; the Calypso is everything you’d expect a beachside surfers’ bar to be – and perhaps a little more. All that’s missing is a prepsychedelic-era Brian Wilson propping up the jukebox (then again, Brian never could surf). On the ocean side of the leafy road to the lighthouse, Calypso hosts the oldest pub scene in Rincón and regularly books live bands to cover rock, reggae and calypso classics. Not surprisingly, it’s a microcosm of the region at large and the place to go to find out about surf gossip,…
reviewed
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Wet & Liquid
Here they are, the beautiful people, perched on zebra-striped stools or lounging on strategically positioned sofas, martinis in hand. The buffed body-builders, the fashionistas, the 20-something wannabe actresses corseted into tight black dresses. Popularly considered to be two of San Juan’s most esteemed watering holes, Wet and Liquid comprise two separate bars situated in Isla Verde’s Water & Beach Club. Liquid dominates the ground floor, Wet inhabits the roof. Interconnected by a space-age elevator that is decorated rather surreally with its own water feature, this is where San Juan’s well-heeled and the well-endowed come to swap email addresses. The real glitterati…
reviewed
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Teatro Tapia
The Teatro Tapia on the south side of Plaza Colón is an intimate neoclassical theater designed in the Italian style with three-tiered boxes and an elegantly decorated lobby. Dating from 1832 and named after the so-called ‘Father of Puerto Rican literature, ’ Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, the building has long acted as a nexus for the island’s rich cultural life and has hosted big names from the world of opera, stage and ballet from around the world. The theater was restored extensively in 1949 and then again in 1976, 1997 and 2007. Experts today rate it as the oldest free-standing drama stage in the US and its territories.
reviewed
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Nuyorican Café
If you came to Puerto Rico in search of authentic salsa music, the legend still lives on at the Nuyorican Café. San Juan’s hottest nightspot is a congenial hub of live Latino sounds and hip-gyrating locals that easily emulates its famous New York namesake. Stuffed into an alley off Fortaleza, opposite a nameless drinking hole, you get everything from poetry readings to six-piece salsa bands that squish onto the stage here. And you’ll meet people too – the Nuyorican is refreshingly devoid of pretensions or dance snobbery. Things usually get interesting around 11pm-ish.
reviewed
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El Batey
If Hunter S Thompson were still alive and living in Puerto Rico, this is where you’d probably find him. Cool, crusty and unashamedly bohemian, the walls of this cavernous drinking joint are covered in graffiti while the low-key lighting will have you groping in your pockets for spare change to light up the suitably retro jukebox. Across the road from the exquisite El Convento Hotel, El Batey is a place to down shots, shoot pool and ramble soulfully about when Elvis was king and the Bacardí bottles still came from Cuba.
reviewed
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La Rumba
This is what you came to Puerto Rico for – a club so packed with people of all ethnicities and ages that it matters not if you are an expert twirler or a rank neophyte who can’t even spell syncopation. It won’t get busy until after 11pm, when the live bands start warming up, but soon enough the trickle of people through the door will turn into a torrent and you’ll be caught up in a warm tropical crush of movement. Expect salsa, samba, reggaeton, rock and, of course, rumba music.
reviewed
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Crash Boat Café
Wedged with its bows sticking out into the bay, the Crash Boat is – exactly as its name implies – shaped rather ingeniously like a crashed boat. The bar is in the bows and sports an authentic ship’s wheel along with some deftly sculpted male torsos (minus heads). Behind is a stage where live music entertains a mixed bag of gay and straight revelers with techno, house and reggaeton music. Trendy without being trashy, this is quite the place for a raucous late-night beer or six.
reviewed
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Kudetá
In the snakes and ladders of San Juan nightlife, Kudetá (coup d’état – geddit?) is a precocious newcomer. It is also part of an emerging new trend: a Pan-Asian restaurant that metamorphoses after hours into a hip club with a hidden upstairs lounge where diners can disappear to dance off their Indonesian barbecued baby-back ribs and Cuba Libre–cured salmon roll salad. They’ve even invented their own furniture – the suede-covered Kudetá Collection.
reviewed
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Brass Cactus
Not at all prickly, the Brass Cactus serves big plates of American pub fare with the odd traditional dish thrown in (dishes $8 to $22). Children will find lots to eat (burgers, fries, chicken fingers) and the down-home decor (think license plates hanging from the walls) will give them plenty to look at. Around 11pm on weekends the Cactus gets more of a club vibe, with patrons coming in to drink rather than eat. Usually there’s live rock music, at least during the high season.
reviewed
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Club Brava
A swinging club inside the El San Juan Hotel that frequently get breathless reviews from celeb spotters and all-night dance fanatics. The two-level interior is small, and the music a mix of dance, reggaeton and salsa. The atmosphere’s electric and the people-watching possibilities in the lobby beforehand strangely voyeuristic. Dress up, bring your credit card and get ready to jive to what is touted as the best sound system in the Caribbean.
reviewed
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Marriott Hotel Lobby
Salsa springs up in the unlikeliest of places, including in the lobby of this international hotel chain. But this is no standard tourist show. Indeed the authenticity and variety of the music here is something to behold – and people dance too (including the staff). Thursday through Saturday is salsa and meringue dancing, Wednesday is Nueva Trova with a Cuban influence, and Sunday through Tuesday is a live salsa sextet.
reviewed
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Banana Dang
Set up in 2007 by two committed coffee and banana addicts from LA, Banana Dang comes pretty close to delivering the best shots of caffeine on the island. Next door to the Lazy Parrot Inn in the hills above Rincón, it’s well worth stopping off here to – in the words of the owners – think, drink and link (yes, there are computer terminals and wi-fi access). The banana smoothies are pretty memorable too.
reviewed
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La Perla Del Sur
This chipper little bar attracts a crowd of amiable older gents who leisurely push pool balls around the table and practice their English swear words when nothing drops. The drinks are about as cheap as they come (a Medalla will set you back $1.50), making cheerful exchanges of rounds common. There’s no phone and the hours are random, but it’s usually open from about noon to dinner time.
reviewed
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Luis A Ferré Center for the Performing Arts
Built in 1981 in Santurce, this center has more than 1800 seats in the festival hall, about 700 in the drama hall and 200 in the experimental theater. The three concert halls fill when the Puerto Rican Symphony Orchestra holds one of its weekly winter performances. International stars also perform here, and it stages productions by the Ópera de Puerto Rico and Ballet de San Juan.
reviewed
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El Flamboyán Café
Rub some chalk onto your pool cue and twist the top off your Medalla beer (preferably by hand); yes, the Flamboyán is one of those rustic open-sided seaside bars with heavy stone tables and perennially popular pool tables that serves simple food and $2 bottles of beer. The local gang shows up on weekend evenings to witness the sporadic African drumming, live salsa and reggaeton.
reviewed
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Oleo
This is Nuevo Old San Juan at its best or worst – depending on your musical persuasion. Forget that image of straw-hatted, guitar strumming jíbaros. Oleo is all loud dance music, minimalist furnishings, expensively-clad 20-somethings and an atmosphere that’s more Vegas than Borinquen. Communication is via shouting or sleek Latino body language.
reviewed
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El Batey
Not a large place, but seemingly big enough to accommodate the majority of Culebra’s population at weekends, when locals swing by to shake a leg to reggaeton with a bit of salsa and meringue mixed in. During the week the place is esteemed for its cheap burgers, cold beers and pool tables. It’s situated on the road north out of Dewey toward the airport.
reviewed
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Bar Code
This dance club is sweaty and riotous on the weekends, bringing in Ponce’s young and restless who tend to drink like fish, dance like dogs (the local term for a distinctive step) and party like every animal in between. Beware the Wasikoki, a five rum concoction that’s served out of jugs. Expect a thorough security check at the door.
reviewed
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Martini’s Cabaret
A luminously lit discotheque and lounge that has booked headliners such as Whitney Houston and Jay Leno in its day – Martini’s in Isla Verde’s InterContinental is where you go for live music, dancing or the odd celeb surprise. There’s more than a hint of Las Vegas in the surroundings – and the drink prices.
reviewed
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Mar y Tierra
This stands out among the cluster of places packed together between the main street and the docks. It is more of a pavilion with indoor and patio seating than a traditional bar, and it pumps out live Latin rock and salsa on the weekends. Right in the center of town, it’s impossible to miss.
reviewed
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El Garabato
In the same building as Red Baron but on the 1st floor, El Garabato is more of a typical pub than a dance hall. Here students swing by for a quick one between classes or stop to play dominoes with the regulars. Happy-hour prices are laughably low – $2 for a mixed drink and $1 for a beer.
reviewed
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Blend
Blend has been described as uberchic; it’s certainly ubernew and – later on in the evening – uberbusy. Cocooned in an old colonial building on Fortaleza St, this fashionable dining and nightlife spot belts out electronic music from its cavernous and moodily lit interior.
reviewed
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Café Hijos de Borinquen
Gotta wedge your way in on weekend nights. DJs, acoustic guitars, sing-a-long sets and even a bit of patriotic fervor as the clock hand approaches midnight. And that’s just the start. The so-named ‘Sons of Borinquen’ has been known to keep going until 6am.
reviewed
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Blue Kafé
You’d never know by strolling past, but hidden within this monocolored lounge is an expansive, open-air courtyard where young ponceños chat and toast the balmy weather, offering a reprieve from some of the more wild options on the block.
reviewed
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Centro Cultural Luis Muñoz Rivera
You can check out the upcoming program in the small theater at the Centro Cultural Luis Muñoz Rivera in the main square. The activity heats up here during the Feria Nacional de Artesanías (Artisan’s Festival) in mid-July.
reviewed