La Placita Santurce / Plaza de Mercado

What is not to like. There is something for everyone! Outdoors style is the way… street partying, plaza people watching. Lots of bars, food, and etcs. Parking is nearly impossible. Taxi or get dropped off. But do not walk far, the neighborhood is somewhat «sketchy» late at night

Excellent place to experience the local ambience. I’m sitting on the plaza in front of the mercado, surrounded by 20 — 30 lovely people with drinks in hand and delicious smelling stew slowly simmering at the outdoor bar on the corner.
Not a tourist in sight… except me, as evidenced by the mango passion fruit batida the bartender made me after I discovered the indoor juice stand had already closed. The warmth of the people shines through in the smiles and the second.
This will be one of my 1^st stops when I return to PR, la Isla Verde!

A must visit when in Puerto Rico. We wanted to eat good food and submerge ourselves in the culture. The market gives you all that and more! Dancing in the streets young and old. Many couples! The drinks were greatly priced and good!

La Placita is a great location for bar hopping in San Juan. Once you have already hit up the traditional clubs you’ll definitely want to come to La Placita. The best way that I can describe it is its basically 4 roads filled tons of bars. Whether you are looking to dance Salsa or to listen to hip hop etc you will find it at La Placita on the weekend. We came here on Saturday night and this place was JUMPING. The sidewalks and streets are filled to capacity. There was one spot in particular that we stayed in for a large portion of the night dancing and drinking. The drinks are cheap and the music is loud. Most of these places do not have air conditioning but no one seems to mind, I know I didn’t. because there are no windows as each location is exposed. Ladies make sure that this is the night you bust out with your flats. The streets are cobble and the sidewalks are bumpy. Not to mention if you like to dance there is plenty of that going on here. Friday & Saturday are the best nights to head out to La Placita and have some fun!

Drink specials for nighttime block party! So much fun Friday night young adult crowd. Go here for a fun night on the town! Did not get to try any food or the market in the day time.

The food is amazing!!!
I had the seafood dish. It was so tasty and our waiter was so nice.
It’s a really small mom/​pop spot so it’s local dishes served. The service was great!!!
Definitely worth a try
This dish was actually from
Mi Casita in Isla Verde, by Carolina.
It was delicious.

This is def. a awesome tourist spot to come to for some late night drinking (for cheap) dinner, dancing and watching live bands! I had myself a great time here especially watching all the people just dance in the street to the loud live music and instruments of SALSA music. This place gets pretty crowded and its pretty much a huge block party, its closed off and has lots of cops around to make sure no funny business and control the cab traffic that comes up and down those blocks. There is awesome great restaurants to eat at which get crowded very quickly so try to make a reservation if you can, everything starts off around 9pm and I hear its popping from Thursday til Saturday! SO WEPAAA! There is local small bars everywhere you go and I cannot complain bout the $ 5 Tito Vodka and pineapples I was getting and the workers are so nice and friendly! Its very easy to catch a cab also back to the local resorts and about a 15 minute drive from Isla Verde/​San Juan. I will for sure come here every time I’m in the motherland!

La Placita is amazing. Everyone kept telling me to go from Thursday — Sunday because it is the best days. But I went on a Wed and def didn’t regret it. The drinks are so cheap. There are so many locals here and the bars are all open to the streets were people are dancing and mingling. One bar had spanish karaōke and a good amount of friendly tourists. The other bar across from it had a spanish local band and singer which sang so many common reggae ton and spanish songs. There were more locals here and were dancing with us tourists. The area outside of la placita didn’t seem like one you’d want to walk alone with, so def go with a group if you are planning to park a bit away or wander around. I wished it stayed open longer on a weekday though because I had so much fun!

After watching an episode of Buzared Food, I couldn’t until I went to Puerto Rico and would be able to check this place out. The episode was very misleading because it was nothing like it was portrait.
I only went to the market in the morning and was truly disappointed. Not want I expected at all. Things were very expensive and not much variety and only a few vendor. I guess this gets good at night but I don’t know. Only good thing was a guava brownie from the sweet shop that was amazing!
A lot of homeless guys around that area. They do have a parking area which had a lot of available spots, a security guard, and it was free. Place has potential but no.

If you visit San Juan, you have to visit La Placita at night! It’s a big block party basically until the sun comes up. My bf and I decided to check this place out on a Wednesday night, not expecting much since it was the day before Thanksgiving but omg it was PACKED! Streets were blocked off from car access and people were everywhere. All of the bars were bumping music, some with Top 40, some with hip hop, and most with latin. Look one way and see people salsa dancing in the streets, look another way and you’ll see people laughing and stumbling over a few beers. Everyone is just out to have a great time and that’s what we did. I can’t wait to go back and see how it is on the weekend!

A great hangout for Thursday and Friday night. Here you mingle with the locals on the closed streets around the old market of Santurce. A hip restaurant scene has evolved around these streets, and dozens of small bars invite to have a rum coke or piña colada, and dance salsa with the local crowd. Totally addictive and authentic!

We spent NYE here and we thought it was such a fun place! The plaza is filled with lively music and it looks like a block party. Parking along the road is hard, but there is a $ 5 lot a couple blocks away.
There’s a good amount of cops patrolling the area. As long as you’re not belligerently drunk, you shouldn’t worry much. I never felt any tensions and did not witness a single fight/​incident at all. I got a little burn from the spark of a firework, but other than that, I had a lot of fun. We spent the night drinking and dancing in the festive streets and we liked it so much that we came back two nights later.
If you get drinks at the bars west of the market, they are more expensive relative to the surrounding bars. If you walk around the plaza to the bars around the corner, drinks are dirt cheap. Get the sangria before they sell out!

A fun open space marketplace to hang out with local folks, listening to live local bands perform traditional music and dance the night away — not before taking a bite in the many good restaurants located around the plaza.

The place becomes alive after 10pm on the weekends. For night life I think this is a must go place. You can take a bus from old San Juan bus terminal M3 to come here. Make sure you have 75cents/​person otherwise you cant board the bus. You can get quarters from a coin rending machine in the bus terminal at old San Juan. It charges 25cents extra for each withdrawal. You can also get it from Starbucks close by. There is a bus every 30 – 45 min till 11pm. Taxi is around 20 $.
When you reach here you can buy cheap drinks 5 $ for two beers. Sangria/​cocktails 5 $. Try frozen sangria it was really good. All kinds of music play here and roads are guarded by cops for the safety of everyone. As the night gets young you will see people dancing on the streets with drinks in their hands. Must place to visit. Definitely recommended :)

I loved the nightlife experience. This was my first visit to Puerto Rico and I had to catch the nightlife before I return home. Live music everywhere people dancing and I got a chance to dance several times. There were some dancers performing also on the stage area. There are several bars around with reasonably priced drinks. It’s pretty diverse and people were just standing around and having a good time. I know where to come when I return.

Came here just to check it out on a Friday morning around maybe 10AM. The place was pretty dead. We parked right in the plaza and were about to pay for parking but someone told us parking was free. There’s people selling lots of fruits inside in the market and maybe a few other vendors (one guy was selling organic beef and gave us a paper with information while explaining the company) but that’s about it in the morning. I was walking around outside the market area and a local told me in Spanish to come back around 8PM because there’s going to be music, dancing, salsa music and a lot of fun. Very friendly guy :) I’m not sure if they have the partying on Thursday nights and Saturday nights as well.
So we go back later that night around 1AM (well, technically the next day) since we did other stuff during the day. It’s very hard to find parking in that area because half the streets are blocked by police for the plaza partying. It’s a completely different scene at night! Lots of music and a ton of people mingling; casual environment. My boyfriend and I aren’t drinkers but if we WERE, I think we’d have a great time. There’s a ton of bars to choose from. There was even a cart selling pinchos (chicken on a stick) that had a decent line. I think it was $ 3/​stick. This was the same price as the pinchos being sold at El Yunque Rainforest.
On my return flight to New York, I overheard a girl saying that there was one night someone told her that everyone parties at La Placita or another place (can’t recall the name of the place — Brava?).

Come here for the nightlife! Way better than just going to one night club for the night, here you get the opportunity to go to many! Many bars and the locals are friendly. Different spots to just walk in to and have a good time.

My only regret is coming here once while in San Juan #GrandmaLife. The area around la placita is lined with restaurants and bars. There is music playing, people watching, and just overall a great time. It kind of reminded me of la zona colonial at night in the Dominican Republic.

Great place to come at night, grab some drinks, listen to the music coming from the many bars in the neighborhood, and even dance in the street. Lots of cats & homeless people, but besides that it’s a good time.

If you want to go to the «Plaza de Mercado» near Condado Beach in San Juan, you really want to go to: La placita in Santurce. Every town has a ‘Plaza de Mercado’ you might as well call it «the market» GO TO: Calle Roberts street in San Juan in the area of Santurce. It is walking distance to Condado Beach. The location pin on this map is accurate. If you need an accurate GPS location use the San Juan Smokehouse resturant. It is located in the center of the market. The other Unilocal listing for Plaza de Mercado Rio Piedras ia another market but everyone is inaccurately uploading pictures from this location to Rio Piedras Unilocal page. I hope this will spare someone from going to the wrong location…
With that being said, La Placita Santurce is a circle of resturants surrounding a building that is run as a farmers market during the day. Most of the resturants open up at night. After 5pm this plaza become very lively with live music and locals drinking and hanging out in the streets. If your looking to get away from the hotel strip of Condado beach and enjoy a night with the people of PR, this is a good start.