Toñita and the Caribbean Social Club: Honoring a Williamsburg Matriarch
Serving Williamsburg with a space for meaningful connection rooted in Puerto Rican heritage and hot, complementary, home-cooked meals, Caribbean Social Club has been a long-standing staple of the Los Sures, Williamsburg community. At the helm of Caribbean Social Club is beloved founder and neighborhood matriarch Toñita, who opened the space in the 1970s.
As part of Colossal's corporate social responsibility program, Start Today, our Colossal team painted a mural of Toñita! The mural stood as a community engagement moment at Toñita Fest 2026 while our parent company, Lamar Advertising, projected the same artwork on a digital billboard nearby.
“Apart from community beautification and hand-painted advertising, murals have always been a symbolic means of uplifting local heroes," said Kelly Peppers, President at Colossal Media. “It was an honor to paint Toñita and see members of the ever-growing community she’s built take a moment to snap a photo with her mural.”
Ahead of Toñita Fest, our NY-based Colossal team spent an evening at Caribbean Social Club for a team gathering. Dipping into the pots of steaming rice and beans, playing intense games of pool, and getting reacquainted with the rules of dominoes, the night was filled with healthy competition, music, and conversation – with a select few of us fan-girling at the chance to meet Toñita.
More than 50 years after opening as a hangout spot for the neighborhood baseball team, Caribbean Social Club exists to celebrate and hold space for Latino culture in an ever-changing NY neighborhood.
Over recent years, Toñita’s decades of work in cultural preservation have reached the global stage. In 2026, Bad Bunny invited Toñita to be part of his Super Bowl halftime show, introducing her to the world during the most-watched halftime show of all time!
We're grateful to have played a small role in Toñita Fest 2026 by commemorating the work of a Williamsburg matriarch through paint, and even more grateful that she got to smell her own painted flowers.
A special thanks to the Colossal team members who worked on this project: Jewel Addy, Lara Burns, Vanessa Barry, Ty Hjortsland, Jack Walsh, Lumi Jewell, Feliks Salman, Anthony Canales, Emma Gilfix, Katie Danforth, Hartwick Hanson, John Samels, Renato Tarma Rebaza, and all the members of our production team and the Start Today committee.
A heartfelt thank you to our partners at Caribbean Social Club for supporting this project with creativity and care, including Toñita, Giovanni Gonzalez, George L. Espada, and the greater Caribbean Social Club x Toñita Fest community.
