Mariah Carey’s Holiday Bar in NYC Is All These Fans Want for Christmas

Even before the shiny red curtains opened at 5 p.m., a line of people, dressed head to toe in red-and-green sequins, formed outside Mariah Carey’s holiday bar, a new pop-up lounge inside the Virgin Hotels New York.

“I heard about this bar from Mariah herself on Instagram,” said Anthony Carey, 43, who was visiting from Liverpool, England, where he works at the National Health Service.

He is so devoted to the singer that he legally changed his last name to Carey when he was 21, and he has a room in his home filled with her merchandise.

“The minute reservations got released I booked it,” he said.

Ms. Carey, who every year seems to campaign a little harder for the title of “Queen of Christmas,” opened the space in late November, blocks from the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan.

The bar, lush with tinsel, is a homage to the musician and a cross-branding extravaganza with Black Irish, Ms. Carey’s cream liqueur, and Bucket Listers, an app that produces experiences. Tickets have been sold out for weeks, and there are steady lines out the door of people hoping to get inside anyway.

Ms. Carey released her hit single “All I Want for Christmas is You” in 1994 and it reliably tops the charts. Although she lost her bid to trademark the title “Queen of Christmas” in 2022, she frequently holds holiday concerts, and this year, she put on a Christmas-time tour, which ended this week at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

In New York City, tickets to the bar, which include a welcome espresso martini, start at $20 and are sold out through Christmas. There are also iterations at Virgin Hotels in Chicago, Dallas, Nashville and New Orleans. Over 33,000 tickets have been sold this holiday season across the country, according to Andy Lederman, the founder and chief executive of Bucket Listers. But Ms. Carey has not visited any of the locations, he said.

Inside the New York bar, guests posed alongside a cardboard cutout of the singer, dressed in a sparkly gown, under the words, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” There was also a shiny red mailbox and postcards, covered with candy canes, to write a letter to Mariah — not Santa.

Mary Barchetto, 51, who lives in Glen Rock, N.J., and runs a nonprofit, said she planned to thank Ms. Carey for “keeping the culture of extra going and making it welcoming to people who may not be so brave to be extra on their own.”

Ms. Barchetto wore a sequined red jumpsuit, silver glitter stiletto boots, and candy cane rhinestone earrings for the occasion.

Her sister-in-law Candi L. Feola, 39, a manufacturing sales assistant who lives in Washington, N.J., was dressed in red sequined boots and a velvet bow, and planned to wait until later in the evening to decide what to write. “The wine will tell me,” she said, laughing.

(Mr. Lederman promised the letters would make it to Ms. Carey. “They are being collected every few days and mailed to her,” he said.)

The bar serves various types of espresso martinis made with Ms. Carey’s Black Irish liquor, each garnished with something fabulous including pink butterflies, edible glitter and cinnamon sticks. And, of course, Ms. Carey’s music is played nonstop.

“We were getting complaints because we were only playing ‘All I Want for Christmas’ every 30 minutes, so we upped it to every 15 minutes,” said Tim Stuyts, Virgin Hotels’ director of food and beverage in New York.

And, on Tuesday night, as if on cue, the crowd started dancing and singing along whenever the song played.

“Sometimes it is difficult because we are coming here every day, and we hear the same music the whole time,” said Jhony Rojas, one of the bartenders. “By now I am a Mariah Carey fan.”

Many people in the crowd consider themselves Ms. Carey’s “lambs,” a term of endearment the singer has given to her fans, and part of a “lambily,” explained Alexis McBride, 41, who lives in Washington, D.C., and works in tech.

Many flocked to the bar on Tuesday before her concert that evening at the Barclays Center. Ms. Carey canceled two concerts in the New York metro area over the weekend when she fell ill, so some were visiting the bar to feel the spirit of the singer when they couldn’t see her perform live.

“A lot of people were trying to come here, but it is all sold out,” said Glen Higgins, 30, who lives in Flushing and works for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

“I am so lucky,” he said, dressed in a one-piece red Santa suit with a white fur collar and shoes that lit up with red and green lights when he pressed a button.

Mr. Higgins came prepared to educate any fair-weather fans about Ms. Carey.

“It’s nice that people appreciate her this time of year, but I appreciate her all year round,” he said. “A lot of people probably think that she only has Christmas hits, especially the younger generations, but she was the biggest artist of the ’90s.”

Alex Iona, 38, who lives in Brooklyn and works as an executive assistant and comedian, showed up at the bar with a Mariah Carey doll that her wife gave her for Christmas last year.

“We had a day Mariah would have loved,” she said. “We went to Rockefeller Center. We saw the Bergdorf windows.”

After the holiday bar, she and a friend were headed to Barclays Center. “The doll is going to the concert,” Ms. Iona said. “She will dance.”

Mr. Carey, the superfan from Britain, wanted even more from the holiday bar.

“Honestly, I feel like it could be a bit more Mariah in here. Like she has wrapping paper. Why aren’t these gift boxes wrapped with the M.C.?” he said, referring to the Christmas display on top of the bar. “There could be even more Mariah music, especially on show day.”

He was not bothered the singer had not been to one of the pop-ups herself.

“She needs to be in the Mariah zone and do her own thing,” said Mr. Carey. “She is entitled to be exactly who she is.”