damnlines.comdamnlines.comCash-only Upper East Side tavern open since 1972, famous for its burger — no reservations, so the bar crowd is the wait.
JG Melon takes no reservations and, per Wikipedia, has been doing it this way since 1972. The Infatuation puts the situation plainly: "there's almost always a wait here, so put your name in, and then crowd around the bar." It is a small, first-come, first-served tavern on the corner of 74th and Third, so the line is a fixture, not a fluke. The venue's own site confirms it is cash only, and there is no card reader to speed anything up.
The mechanism is simple. You give your name at the door and wait by the bar. The Infatuation describes a "bustling, tavern-like" room split between "weekly regulars and first-timer tourists," and suggests ordering a martini "from someone who makes approximately 1,000 a day" while you stand around. Everything is cash, jukebox included; the review notes an ATM across the street for when you forget.
General web summaries peg a typical wait around 30 minutes, but that is a rough aggregate, not a measurement — individual reports run from roughly 10 minutes on a quiet afternoon to over an hour on a packed night. Weekends and the prime lunch and dinner windows are the reliable crush. damnlines has no camera at JG Melon, so treat every figure on this page as reported by others, never as a live count.
No camera here yet — but these lines are on camera right now:
The Halal Guys · 25 min walkclosedCaffè Panna · 57 min walkclosedBánh Anh Em · 63 min walkclosedNo. The Infatuation says it is first-come, first-served — you put your name in and wait by the bar. There is no reservation system, so plan on some wait whenever you go.
The Infatuation says there is almost always a wait. General web summaries cite roughly 30 minutes as typical, with individual reports ranging from about 10 minutes off-peak to over an hour on a packed night. damnlines does not measure the wait here live.
No source names a magic window, but the standard advice is off-peak mid-afternoon — between the roughly 12:30-2:30pm lunch and 7-9:30pm dinner rushes — and weekdays over weekends. The Infatuation notes weekends are the busiest.
Yes. Both The Infatuation and the venue's own site say it is cash only, jukebox included. The Infatuation notes there is an ATM across the street.
1291 Third Avenue at East 74th Street, on the Upper East Side. The venue's site lists hours of Mon-Sat 11:30am-3am and Sun 11:30am-1am, with the kitchen closing earlier.