Whoever coined the little bit of bar-business knowledge that maintains you’ll be able to’t open a brand new dive bar by no means met Nicholas Jarrett. The veteran bartender, who has known as New Orleans his house for 12 years, has lengthy divided his expertise between high-end cocktail dens (Treatment, Peychaud’s) and dives (The Saint).

In summer season 2023, he and The Saint proprietor Benji Lee opened Holy Diver, a dark-as-night nook bar that marries parts of each genres, maybe higher than any watering gap to return earlier than it. “It’s a correct bar,” Jarrett rasps in a voice as gravelly as the underside of a fish tank. “We’ve received a stage, we’ve received a jukebox, there’s a pool desk. Now we have correct drinks. It’s a traditional neighborhood dive bar, however with one thing for everybody.”

There’s additionally a cage, newly put in in a single wall of the pool room, for use for deliberate burlesque reveals and go-go dancers. That the jukebox be free was vital to him. He wished to keep away from a predictable Spotify playlist. Plus, he says, “Bartenders aren’t at all times one of the best curators of music in an area.”

All bartenders—a mixture of these with and with out cocktail expertise—can simply deploy Jarrett’s batched classics, that are designed to require minimal effort from the bar employees and are far above dive-bar grade. The home Martini, as an example, is a mix of two gins and two vermouths. “I feel it’s honest to say that there isn’t anything fairly prefer it,” he says of his new house. “It’s an homage. There was no place to get a great Martini or PM Spirit or mezcal whereas taking pictures pool.”

Click on right here to learn extra about a few of 2025’s different Imbibe 75 Individuals and Locations to Watch.