This Cocktail Lounge Is the Heart of Brooklyn's Panamanian Community. Now It's Passing to a Third Generation.

"But for a three-month stretch over the summer, Michelle's was closed: Sherwin Johnson, Jr. was renovating before passing the bar down to his son, Sherwin Johnson, III. Of his son, he says, "He's the boss now.""

"During the closure, every Saturday, regulars transformed the sidewalk in front of the marbled black facade into a tropical noir vignette. Dancehall, salsa, and soca music played from a Bluetooth speaker. Ladies in evening gowns stepped out of a cab into the glow of a streetlight. Folks streamed in and out of Michelle's Fritura - the next-door, Saturday-only takeout stall - with treats like fried yuca and chicharrones. Men sat under the fluttering street trees, playing dominoes while gently bouncing plates of carimañolas on their legs to the music."

"Michelle's is the last concentrated meeting spot in what was once a thriving ecosystem of businesses supporting the largest diasporic Panamanian community in the world."

"Afro-Panamanian families migrated to Panama from the West Indies at the turn of the twentieth century to work on the canal. They came to Brooklyn en masse, sometimes just one generation later, to escape stifling race-based pay scales, limited public services in majority-Black cities like Colón, and finally denaturalization. Already accustomed to building their own grassroots civic institutions, they integrated swiftly into Brooklyn's existing Black and West Indian community."

Panamanians in New York maintain a tradition of community organizing through weekly galas, harbor cruises, karaoke nights, and parades that culminate at Michelle's Cocktail Lounge in Flatbush. The bar served as a central meeting place for fifty years, and a three-month summer closure during renovations exposed how much regulars relied on it. During the closure, people recreated the atmosphere outside every Saturday with dancehall, salsa, and soca music, evening arrivals, takeout from the nearby fritura stall, and shared food and games like dominoes and carimañolas. Michelle's remains the last concentrated meeting spot in a once-thriving network of Panamanian businesses supporting a large diasporic community. Afro-Panamanian families migrated to Panama for canal work and later moved to Brooklyn to escape racialized pay, limited services, and denaturalization, building grassroots institutions and integrating into Brooklyn’s Black and West Indian community.

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