Mariah Carey’s bar in New York plays her Christmas hit every 15 minutes

Before the bright red curtains even opened at 5 p.m., a line of people, dressed head to toe in red and green sequins, formed outside Mariah Carey’s Christmas 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 Liverpool, England, where he works for the National Health Service.

He is so devoted to the singer that he legally changed his surname to Carey when he was 21, and has a room in his house full of her products. “The minute reservations were released, I booked it,” he said.

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

The bar, exuberant with decorations, is a tribute to the musician and a cross-branding extravaganza with Black Irish, Carey’s cream liqueur and Bucket Listers, an app that produces experiences. Tickets have been sold out for weeks, and there are constant lines outside the door of people hoping to get in anyway.

Carey released her hit single “All I Want for Christmas is You” in 1994 and it has reliably topped the charts. Although she lost her bid to claim the “Queen of Christmas” title in 2022, she frequently plays holiday shows and this year went on a Christmas tour, which ended this week at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

In New York City, bar tickets, which include a welcome martini, start at $20 and are sold out through Christmas. There are also iterations at Virgin Hotels in Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, Tennessee and New Orleans. More than 33,000 tickets were sold this holiday season nationwide, according to Andy Lederman, founder and CEO of Bucket Listers. But Carey didn’t visit any of the sites, he said.

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

Mary Barchetto, 51, who lives in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and runs a nonprofit, said she planned to thank Carey for “keeping the extra culture going and making it welcoming to people who might not be as brave to be extra on their own.”

Barchetto wore a red sequined jumpsuit, silver glitter high-heeled boots and candy cane-shaped rhinestone earrings for the occasion.

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

(Lederman promised the letters would reach Carey. “They’re being collected every few days and mailed to her,” he said.)

The bar serves several types of martinis made with Carey’s Black Irish liqueur, each garnished with something fabulous, including pink butterflies, edible glitter and cinnamon sticks. And, of course, Carey’s music is played non-stop.

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

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

“Sometimes it’s hard because we come here every day and we hear the same music all the time,” said Jhony Rojas, one of the bartenders. “Now I’m a Mariah Carey fan.”

Many people in the crowd considered themselves Carey’s “lambs,” a term of endearment the singer used to refer to her fans, and part of a “lambily,” explained Alexis McBride, 41, who lives in Washington, D.C., and works with technology.

Many went to the bar on Tuesday before her show that night at Barclays Center. Carey canceled two shows in the New York metro area over the weekend when she became ill, so some were visiting the bar to feel the singer’s spirit when they couldn’t see her perform live.

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

“I’m very lucky,” he said, dressed in a red Santa suit with a white fur collar and shoes that lit up with red and green lights when he pressed a button.

Higgins came prepared to educate any casual fan about Carey.

“It’s cool that people appreciate it this time of year, but I appreciate it year-round,” he said. “A lot of people probably think 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 his wife gave him for Christmas last year.

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

After the holiday bar, she and a friend headed to the Barclays Center. “The doll is going to the show,” said Iona. “She’s going to dance.”

Carey, the British superfan, wanted even more from the Christmas bar.

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

He wasn’t bothered by the fact that the singer didn’t go to any of the pop-ups.

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