Here, the customers drink $3 beers and play dominoes, or sit around and chat over free plates of food like arroz con gandules. The walls are crowded with Puerto Rican flags and portraits of the bar’s owner and matriarchal figure, Maria Antonia Cay, who is more commonly known as Toñita. She opened the place in the 1970s as the Caribbean Social Club, a members-only hangout for the neighborhood baseball team. In 2000, she obtained a liquor license and opened the spot to everyone for cheap drinks and pots of Puerto Rican dishes that she makes in her apartment kitchen upstairs. “It reminds me of home,” said Djali Brown-Cepeda, an archivist and filmmaker who runs the Nuevayorkinos Instagram account.

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Persons: Maria Antonia Cay, ”, Djali Brown, Cepeda Organizations: Puerto, Caribbean Social Locations: Williamsburg , Brooklyn, Toñita’s, Puerto Rican, New York City