Part of the storied history of Studio 54 includes someone who never stepped foot inside the club as a guest.

The homeless man, who used to hang out outside and sometimes hailed taxis for guests, was a “nice guy,” one former worker said.

“We’d send him on errands” and give him tips, said Chuck Garelick, head of security at Studio. “He was always … drinking Budweiser tallboys.”

“New Yorkers could tell he was a street guy. Tourists, probably not,” Garelick said.

In the winter, he would disappear for weeks at a time.

“And we’d go, ‘Where were you?’ And he’d go, ‘Rikers, I needed to get warm.’ He would break a window or do something where he knew he’d get 30 days,” Garelick, 64, said.

That earned him the nickname “Rikers.”

One night, in the summer of 1977, a Texan showed up at the front door.

“This guy had on the Western shirt, the big silver belt buckle, cowboy hat, and he was with a big-haired blonde,” he said. The cowboy tried to bribe his way inside, to no avail.

But he returned 20 minutes later, asking for the “valet.”

“A guy came over before, I gave him my key and he parked my Caddy,” he said.

But the club didn’t have valet service.

Garelick, figuring out who was behind the ruse, ran to the nearby parking garage and found the Texan’s red Cadillac Eldorado convertible.

“Who’s passed out in the front seat with a can of beer in his hand? Rikers.”