Welcome back to Dive Bar Jukebox, a LAST CALL paid subscriber exclusive where bartenders, writers, chefs, musicians, and a cast of cool characters answer the question: If we were hanging out together at a bar and I put ten credits on the jukebox, what songs would you punch in and why? The responses reveal thoughts on, and tales about, their favorite dive bars along with a curated, annotated playlist for your listening pleasure.
Please welcome today’s special guest…
“In New York, where we so often avoid eye contact by any means possible, bars are special in the way that they can make people feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable around one another, even if it’s only for the length of a song.”
—Laurymar Lopez Melon
Bartender Laurymar Lopez Melon ("Laury” for short) hails from Isabela, Puerto Rico, where she lived with her single mother until they moved to Houston, Texas, to seek better opportunities for the family when Laury was 12. “I experienced major culture shock and struggled to find where I fit in,” she recalls. “The things that felt normal to me suddenly felt different, and for a long time I learned how to adapt to whatever space I was in. I became very good at shapeshifting.”
During her college years in Ohio, Lopez Melon started working at a high-volume, off-campus bar doing everything from crowd control to working the door to cleaning the bathrooms before eventually stepping behind the bar as a bartender, banging out simple drinks like Vodka Sodas, Jäger bombs, Dirty Shirleys, and Starry Night shots [chilled equal parts of Jägermeister and Goldschläger]. “I graduated cum laude with a degree in philosophy thinking I was supposed to pursue a more traditional career path, but bartending gave me one of my first real experiences of community,” says Lopez Melon.
After some traveling in a brief attempt at figuring out her life, Lopez Melon moved to New York City with her cat Comet, planning to tend bar until she plotted her next move. In time she was part of the opening team at SoSo’s, a neighborhood cocktail bar in Lower Manhattan, that would serve as the foundation for what would become her proper cocktail education.
“I was honest about my experience. I told them my favorite cocktail was a Mojito and that I didn’t know what a Vesper was,” says Lopez Melon, who eventually became the head bartender by working hard to learn the foundations and families of classic cocktails, tasting through spirits, perfecting her technique, and mastering the fine art of hospitality.
“Hospitality became the thing that I figured out I wanted to do,” she says. “And alongside it, I started reclaiming and figuring out my identity and what it meant to me.”
The last couple of years were spent at Milady’s and Bar Madonna, where Lopez Melon continued “exploring and experimenting with what kind of bartender I wanted to be.”
Today you can find Lopez Melon at Bar Snack, Iain Griffiths’ East Village neighborhood bar recently ranked No. 3 in North America’s 50 Best Bars, a venue that she says feels like a culmination of everything she’s been working toward. “It’s fun, fast-paced, and intentional; a space that feels bigger than itself,” she says. “As a young person in this industry, it can feel like you’re under a microscope. But I want to emphasize that there is always room to explore, to figure out what’s right for you, to disagree, to pivot, and still show up with grace and work ethic.”
Laurymar Lopez Melon’s colleagues and regulars aren’t the only ones in town to notice her hard work, as PUNCH recently recognized Lopez Melon as one of the Best New Bartenders of 2026. “It still feels surreal and intimidating,” she says. “I don’t know if I’m the most naturally creative person in the room, but I do know that I love this craft—learning, teaching, and creating spaces where people feel like they belong.”
Read on as Lopez Melon explains why a certain non-working jukebox at an East Village bar happens to be her favorite one in town, the art of crying at 1:00 a.m. at a dive bar, her now not-so-secret “walk on” song, and a playlist that follows the arc of a night out—“from walking into the bar to settling in to realizing it’s finally time to go home to your cats.” Lopez Melon reminds us that “These aren’t cowboy songs, and they’re not deep cuts. They’ve just been there for me, and they make me feel good.”
What is your favorite dive bar and why do you love it?
Laury: I think I’m still looking for it, quite honestly. But I will give love to H&H Reserve in Williamsburg. It doesn’t fit the stereotypical dive bar mold, but it is a neighborhood bar at its core. When I worked on Metropolitan Ave, it was where I ended up most nights. It wasn’t trying to be anything. The music was good and random, but never so loud that you couldn’t overhear the absurd conversation next to you. And the crowd skewed older, which I appreciated. It was one of those places where if you stayed long enough, everyone started talking to each other. Also, they kept Rumplemintz in the freezer. A bar after my own heart.
What makes a dive bar a dive bar?
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