Entertainment in San Juan
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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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B
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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C
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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D
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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F
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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G
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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H
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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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.
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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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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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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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M
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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N
Kali’s
Sophisticated sanjuaneros love this moody, Asian-themed restaurant and bar. Sheer curtains flutter against dark maroon walls while trendy patrons sip cocktails and order Indian-influenced appetizers at a big bar adorned with candles.
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Gallery Café
This café in the old city features jazz on Wednesday night, and funk, hip-hop, Latin jazz and techno Thursday to Saturday. Happy-hour specials run till 9pm on Friday. You get a well-dressed local yuppie gang here.
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El Chico Lounge
If you want to dance but discos aren’t your style, then try El Chico. Professional dancers move among the crowd getting everyone in motion. Live music adds to the fun. Dressy attire required.
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Hiram Bithorn Stadium
Home of the Montreal Expos until 2004, Hiram Bithorn Stadium is a small ballpark built on Astroturf. It’s named after the first Puerto Rican to play in the majors.
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Noise
Mainly the hip-hop variety and salsa-searchers look elsewhere. Brave ladies get in free on Friday nights. There’s a metal detector and airport style pat-down at the door.
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Fine Arts Cinema
The island’s only true art-house cinema was once a sanctuary for adult-only movies. These days it shows a good selection of independent films from around the world.
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Cups
Lesbian-friendly bars are hard to come by in San Juan, but this one in Santurce is a laid-back women’s scene popular with couples and cruisers.
reviewed
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Cocobongo
A Mexican-flavored restaurant/club with fine margaritas, this is a good place to catch live salsa and it rocks till late.
reviewed
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Roberto Clemente Coliseum
The Roberto Clemente Coliseum is the place to catch top boxing bouts and basketball games.
reviewed
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Reading Cinemas
In the Hato Rey district, this is the city’s largest multiplex.
reviewed
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Teatro Metro
This classic, restored cinema is in Santurce, edging towards Miramar.
reviewed
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Y
UA Cinema 150
This awaits viewers in Isla Verde.
reviewed