Salsa, merengue and llanera music blared from speakers.
Friends cracked open cans of Polar, a pilsner beer from Venezuela now available stateside.
Families wore the red, yellow, and blue flags and colors in a crowd that grew to about 100 at The Latin Corner, a Venezuelan shop, bar, and food truck spot in Pineville, a suburb of Charlotte, home to North Carolina's largest Venezuelan community.
Dozens crowded outdoors around a T.V. broadcasting the surprising news: U.S. forces led a clandestine operation to invade and attack Venezuela early Saturday morning. The Venezuelan president and autocrat Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, were arrested.
Maduro — long a geopolitical foe of the U.S. — appeared in a New York City federal court on Monday for alleged drug trafficking charges.
"I couldn't believe it until I saw it on T.V., then I processed it, and I still couldn't believe it, and then I processed it again," said José Medina, a Venezuelan expat who arrived to celebrate with his friends.
"And here I am, still processing it," he said.
Anxiously waiting, the crowd cheered wildly as news reports showed soldiers escorting a handcuffed Maduro out of a U.S. military plane.
A protest song broke out in Spanish: "It fell! And it fell! This government has fallen!"
"This is the best start to the new year," said Juan Carlos Salazar, in Spanish. "They finally took this guy out. There are still more they need to take out, but this is a step in the right direction."
Salazar and others there told WUNC that President Donald Trump was to thank.
Salazar, a U.S. citizen, says he voted for Trump. But, he was disenchanted with his immigration crackdowns in North Carolina.
"With the immigration policy of chasing people down, I didn't agree," said Salazar. "I have friends who had Temporary Protected Status, I had family afraid to leave their homes."
For now, the toppling of Maduro is welcome news for many of the estimated 25,000 Venezuelans in North Carolina, who hope this news means an end to the Chavista regime.
The vast majority of the Venezuelan diaspora fled the economic and social crisis that began under the late populist and socialist president Hugo Chávez, who served in office from 1999 until his death in 2013.
This crisis worsened in the last decade under Maduro, causing more than 7 million people to flee.
"I've been waiting 26 years for this," said Rosina Albano, who cried tears of joy.
Albano, like many Venezuelans who've exiled themselves in the U.S., says she personally witnessed deadly violence from Maduro's state police forces.
Albano says state forces even attacked and threatened her own family when she lived in the city of Barquisimeto.
"For the first time in my 70 years, I can't explain how I feel," she said.
Uncertainty for Venezuela's future
The news also yielded complicated feelings, however, for some of the crowd who gathered to celebrate.
"I am happy on the one hand, but I'm also feeling a lot of anxiety and I'm sure anyone who still has family in Venezuela must feel the same," said Iohany Solís, in Spanish. "We're hoping for the best."
As far as what comes next, the Trump administration says it will handle the transition — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. will be "running policy" in Venezuela and that the U.S. will enforce its influence through an existing "oil quarantine" near the coast of Venezuela, according to NPR.
How that actually ends up playing out remains unclear for many.
In downtown Raleigh, a different rally was held: American activist groups organized an anti-war protest against the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and apparent violation of Venezuelan sovereignty.
Around 100 people gathered to protest, The News & Observer reported.
The American airstrikes carried out during the operation to seize Maduro reportedly left around 40 people dead, including civilians, The New York Times reported.
Miguel Chirinos, longtime Durham resident and founding member of the Venezuelan Cultural Association of North Carolina, says the country is in limbo.
"For how long can this situation be there?" said Chirinos. "(Are) they going to call for a new presidential elections? Until now, nobody knows."
He says he doesn’t want his native country to become a “non-official U.S. territory.”
