Get ready for a Filipino house party when June Baby, New York’s latest cocktail bar with ube coladas and pulutan, opens in the East Village on Wednesday, October 28, at 197 Second Avenue, between East 12th and 13th streets.
Co-owners and couple Roxanne
Diaz Bangalan and Darwin Pornel and their partner Ben Rojo started June Baby as a pop-up in 2025 to create spaces for Filipinos, Filipino Americans, and everyone else.
The bar is “based on the idea of where we exist as third culture kids and how people, regardless of the specifics of their backgrounds, can relate to the experience,” Rojo says.
The name refers to the Philippines’ Independence Day. The country declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898, but after decades of American rule, it marked the holiday on July 4, the date the U.S. recognized its sovereignty in 1946. In 1962, President Diosdado Macapagal proclaimed June 12 Philippine Independence Day, honoring the earlier declaration. “We really loved this idea of reclaiming our identities and reclaiming our history,” Bangalan says.
The menu starts with theube colada ($15), a Rojo invention that Pornel calls “the most perfect rendition of the ube colada I’ve ever had.” The calamansi highball is a vodka soda highlighting the Filipino citrus (there’s a nonalcoholic version too). Pornel started developing the highball in 2015; he says the drink shows off the team’s cocktail expertise and Filipino flavors.
The Turon-Tado crosses a daiquiri with turon, the Filipino dessert of crispy banana rolls, and is made with caramelized banana and jackfruit. The margarita comes with a corn–cream cheese foam. The Negroni ($17) borrows the flavors of buko pandan, a coconut salad with pandan jellies.
The food menu features snacky plates in the vein of pulutan, a Filipino style of small dishes that are easy to eat while sitting or standing.
“We’re trying to be nostalgic and reminisce about the flavors,” Bangalan says, but they’re not trying to recreate home cooking. There’s pork lumpiang shanghai, and eggplant Parm ($17) with cotija and a marinara inspired by caldereta, a Filipino stew. The June Baby burger ($18), a take on West Coast icon In-N-Out and a nod to Bangalan and Pornel’s California roots, comes with grilled or raw onions, fries, and banana ketchup.
The trio is working with chef-consultants Kevin Cardeñas, Adrian Capellan, and Lem Soriano of the pop-up Solo Diner. Bangalan hints at a last-call surprise.
Before June Baby, Rojo opened Los Angeles’s No Smoking Bar, and worked at Angel’s Share and Blueprint. Bangalan and Pornel met working at Nomad Los Angeles; she also worked at Faith & Flower in LA and Union Square Cafe in New York. Pornel was director of operations for Paradise Projects and a brand ambassador for Mr. Black and worked at Nomad Bar in New York. Rojo and Pornel spent a summer working together at Mister Paradise, too.
June Baby’s 1,100-square-foot space holds 76 people and brings Rojo full circle: He opened Black Emperor, the bar that previously occupied the space. The neighborhood fits, too. The East Village is “home to so many immigrant diaspora groups in New York City history, not the least of which are Filipinos,” he says.
Bangalan points to the Filipino businesses Downtown, including Unapologetic Foods’ East Village Filipino restaurant Naksand Lower East Side newcomer Hoy. “We really saw it as an opportunity to be part of that larger story,” she says.
The bar displays artwork from local Filipino artists, including a piece on the back bar by sisters Coco Lim Haas and Sophia Haas. Filipino American designers Jamie NYC and Mighty Ape Graphix made the uniforms; the architects, Camille Esquivel de la Fé and Adela Locsin, are also Filipino. The team kept the solid mahogany bar top from Black Emperor as well as some seating and other fixtures.
“In my perfect mind, it’s going to be just a bunch of people walking around, cackling, buying each other drinks,” Pornel says. “That’s my dream.”
The goal is for June Baby to feel like the Filipino American parties they grew up with, with lots of food, talking, and just hanging out.
“I just want people to really feel seen in our space,” Pornel says. “That’s super-important to us — not just people who are Filipino American but just anybody of any culture.”
June Baby will be open 4 p.m. to midnight, Tuesday through Sunday, and takes walk-ins only.
