About · 835 Franklin Ave
St. Lucian roots, Brooklyn attitude, and a room that makes first-timers feel like regulars. Opened on Franklin Avenue in 2024.
Franklin Avenue already had bars. What it didn't have was the one you'd pick without thinking. Good enough for a date, loose enough for a Tuesday, priced like it wants you back.
So in 2024, after twenty years running rooms at the Four Seasons and Tatiana, Craig Joseph opened The C List and made it that place.
The drinks come first. Caribbean-inspired cocktails from fresh juice and house infusions. A rum shelf that starts in Castries, St. Lucia, where he was born, and works its way across the islands. Classics done right. Bites you'll order twice.
The room comes second, and it's close. Newly renovated. A long bar with real bar seats. Local art on the walls, vinyl on the turntable, sound you can still talk over.
The rest is just people. Regulars who bring first-timers. First-timers who become regulars. That's the whole plan.
Built by hand, priced for a neighborhood.
No reservations, no dress code, no door attitude. Walk in, find a stool, you're on the list.
Staff who remember your name by round two. A crowd that knows how to have a night. Both sides of the counter.
A note from the founder
Twenty years of running other people's rooms taught me exactly what I wanted mine to be. The place you go after a long day.
Craig Joseph was born in Castries, St. Lucia, where hospitality isn't a career, it's how you're raised.
He brought that to New York and spent two decades at the top of the industry: food and beverage at the Four Seasons in Midtown, then General Manager of Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi at Lincoln Center, one of the most celebrated restaurants in the country.
Then he walked away from corporate to build the place he'd been picturing the whole time. Not a scene. A proper bar with exceptional drinks, where you come after a long day and the bill doesn't ruin the night.
The rum on the shelf is from home. The records are his. When he's not behind the bar he's traveling or with his pups, and both show up in the playlist.
If you've been in, thank you. If you haven't, your seat's ready.
Part of the block
The art in the room is from artists who live around it. It rotates. Ask about the current show.
MicA stage for whoever's brave, a mic for whoever's had two. Pride Month open mic with Brooklyn Pride Center.
RumFlights from Jamaica, St. Lucia, Barbados, poured by people who grew up with them.
GameFootball, soccer, the fight. The big screen is on when it matters, and the afterparty is automatic.
Notes from Franklin Ave
