For Honey’s co-owners Arley Marks and Daniel Gladstone, Saturday night was just like any other night in Brooklyn.
Well, except for the part when Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce arrived for a private event being held at the cocktail bar that evening on May 16.
The event was the wedding of Kelce’s childhood friend Eli London, who they said has been a longtime customer of Honey’s since the bar and event space opened in 2016.
While the staff at Honey’s were informed ahead of time that a ‘high-profile guest’ would be attending the event, Marks and Gladstone exclusively told the Daily Mail, no one could expect that the 14-time Grammy winner would be the one to walk through their doors.
‘She was just like a regular wedding guest,’ Gladstone said. ‘It was just like any other wedding we have, and she was very appreciative.’
This week, photos and videos of the pop star, 36, and the Kansas City Chiefs player, also 36, arriving at the Brooklyn hotspot went viral across social media.
Taylor Swift, 36, and Travis Kelce, 36, arrived at a Brooklyn bar and event space on May 16 for the wedding of Kelce’s childhood friend (seen)
Photos showed the couple arriving at the event space in a silver SUV and walking hand-in-hand
Photos showed the engaged couple – who are due to be married this summer – arriving at the event space in a silver SUV and walking into Honey’s hand-in-hand, with Swift wearing a gold silk Maria Lucia Hohan gown and Kelce dressed in a navy pin-striped suit.
Fans also snapped images of the pair mingling with wedding guests and eating slices of pizza on Honey’s rooftop garden.
To both fans and residents, however, the couple’s presence in the industrial Brooklyn neighborhood indeed came as a shock.
‘Never thought I’d see Taylor Swift stepping foot in Bushwick but here we are,’ read one post on X.
‘Taylor Swift went to Honey’s? That’s so random,’ said another fan on TikTok.
‘The concept of Taylor Swift attending a wedding in Bushwick I’m crying,’ joked someone else.
Bushwick, a northeast Brooklyn neighborhood that sits on the border of Queens, has grown in popularity among the city’s queer community and young creatives for its vibrant arts scene and nightlife.
Once a brewery district during the late 19th century, Bushwick has long been home to the largest Latino population in Brooklyn – a community of working-class, immigrant families that are rapidly being pushed out amid rising rent prices and gentrification.
Honey’s, a cocktail bar and event space, has been a mainstay in the Bushwick community since 2016 (seen)
Bushwick, a northeast Brooklyn neighborhood that sits on the border of Queens, has grown in popularity among the city’s queer community and young creatives for its vibrant arts scene and nightlife
Bushwick has long been home to the largest Latino population in Brooklyn, who are rapidly being pushed out amid rising rent prices and gentrification
Apart from Honey’s, which is located in an industrial zone of Bushwick surrounded by converted warehouses, street art, and Newtown Creek, the area serves a host of nightclubs and bars such as Silo, Elsewhere and the ill-fated event space formerly known as Brooklyn Mirage.
Since 2016, Honey’s has been a neighborhood mainstay thanks to its menu of natural wines, mead-based cocktails and a moderately sized dancefloor equipped with a booming sound system and an overhead disco ball.
The bar is set to celebrate its 10th anniversary this June, a major feat considering the revolving door of New York City establishments that have been forced to shut down in recent years.
Still, the co-owners acknowledged that there has been some renewed interest in Honey’s following Swift’s viral appearance.
‘We had a nice little jump in wedding inquiries afterwards, which was kind of cool,’ Marks said.
Their network of DJs and promoters have also shared their excitement that the A-list couple were spotted at the same establishment as them.
‘The coolest part about it is there are a lot of communities that call Honey’s home, different groups of DJs,’ said Gladstone. ‘It’s very cool to see promoters and partners we work with reposting, just jokingly, “Taylor is at my spot.”‘
However, this wasn’t the first time that Honey’s has hosted famous figures or large-scale events.
Honey’s co-owner Daniel Gladstone told the Daily Mail that Swift was treated just like a ‘regular wedding guest’
Wedding guests partied on the Honey’s rooftop garden and ‘danced the night away’ from around 7pm until one in the morning
Just last month, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated his first 100 days in office at the event space, as photos shared to social media showed the millennial mayor posted up behind the rooftop DJ booth.
As such, Marks maintained that staff at Honey’s were fully prepared for Saturday’s wedding celebration and were expected to treat Swift and Kelce just like any other guest.
‘We pride ourselves on being respectful and welcoming to everyone,’ he said.
‘We present ourselves the same to high-profile guests that we do to everybody else. So, we don’t really need to do anything differently. We just show the security what they need to see.’
Unsurprisingly, photos from Saturday showed Swift and Kelce arriving at the bar with a security team in tow. Gladstone took the opportunity to praise the couple’s ‘super professional’ security detail, for which the pop star reportedly pays a whopping $2 million per year.
Throughout the evening, wedding guests partied on Honey’s rooftop garden and ‘danced the night away’ from around 7pm until one in the morning.
Before leaving, Swift and Kelce told the co-owners they ‘loved’ their bar.
Photos then showed the couple leaving Honey’s later in the evening, as Swift wore Kelce’s suit jacket while exiting the bar.
Swift and Kelce told the Honey’s co-owners they ‘loved’ their bar, and the pop star was ‘very appreciative’ towards staff
Swift was seen wearing Kelce’s suit jacket while exiting Honey’s later that evening
Despite the swarm of fans and paparazzi outside Honey’s, Marks said that they wanted the couple to ‘not feel like they were on display’ that night.
After all, Swift and Kelce were there to support the NFL star’s longtime friend and his wife.
‘We were focused on making sure that the bride and groom had a great night,’ Gladstone said, to which Marks added: ‘We were happy to have Taylor and Travis in and they’re always welcome back.’
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