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Among the several bars along Roosevelt Avenue where working-class immigrants buy rumba dances for $2 per song, this low-ceilinged tavern is the safest, most cheerfully lit, and the most popular: Even the occasional gringo is lured in by the cartoonish fluorescent posters plastered on its faux stone-fort exterior. Whether it’s baby-doll, nurse, or bikini night, the air inside is thick with the body heat of dozens of lotharios shimmying with for-hire “bailarinas” from across Latin America—all the more so when a reggaeton banger provokes grinding against the stone columns of the small concrete dance floor. At surrounding tables, tuxedoed waiters bring Coronas to onlookers and overpriced shots of aguardiente to dates whose innocent flirtations go for $40 per hour. If the narrow barroom isn’t too packed and tequila has emboldened them, those who arrive too late to snag their favorite chica linda can beg the gorgeous bartenders for the impossible: Some free lovin'. — Daniel Maurer

No baseball caps, jeans or sneakers.