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Pat O'Briens....................
Some friends and I will be hitting up Bourbon St, NOLA for the first time for Spring Break. Any reccomemdations on what bars to hit up or any other suggestions????
Pat O'Briens....................
Bourbon Street was pretty gross, glad I didn't spend much time there. St. Charles and Magazine St. ftw.
Don't go into the alleys.
Ha, I'll keep that in mind.
Don't drop the soap.
My wife and I enjoyed brunch here: http://www.courtoftwosisters.com/
I'd start the night off at Redfish Grill. The food is great and not too expensive. I'm not sure how old you and your friends are, but if you are younger, then the place for you guys would be Cat's Meow. There's tons of talent there, ty and looking to hook up. If you are looking for free live music, then hit up the BBC or The Famous Door. BBC has a free upstairs balcony, so if you bring some beads up there, you are sure to see some boobs, especially during spring break. If you guys are a little older, then get a table in the courtyard or the piano bar at Pat O' Brien's. Either way, stop at Pat O's and get a Hurricane, because they make the authentic one. Do not buy a Hurricane from anywhere other than Pat O's, it will be a cheap knockoff. As far as strip clubs, the premier one to go to with the hottest girls is Rick's Cabaret. Grade A talent in which most of the times they fly girls from Vegas to dance on the weekends. If you are on a tighter budget, then go to Larry Flint's Hustler Club, they usually have some quality as well.
Enjoy your trip.
I haven't been there in like a decade and since before Katrina so I'm sure times have changed. But back then, Pat O'Brien's was the place a lot of tourists would go. Sometimes they have dueling pianos so that's cool. And the outdoor patio with the fountain at night is cool too. If you go all the way north past the gay section to Esplanade there are some cooler, less touristy bars. And if you want an even lesser touristy spot, you have to go uptown to the other side of the city, to places like the Maple Leaf. The Balcony was a spot a lot of college kids went to too when I was there. And then the late night spot we'd hit up like after 4 AM was Snake and Jakes. I wonder if it's still there. Again, all of those spots from what I remember from a decade ago.
If you're coming to New Orleans and want to know what's going on, check Gambit (local entertainment newspaper that's available online) and WWOZ (90.7) if you have access to a radio while in town. Both provide thorough rundowns of live music, festivals, bars/restaurants, and other happenings on a daily basis.
Bourbon St. is gross. Locals avoid it like the plague. I love the rest of the Quarter, though, and there are tons of great bars and restaurants to check out that are less unpleasant.
Jean Lafitte's on the less touristy part of Bourbon (close to Esplanade) is a great bar, if a bit more crowded than it used to be. And they just reopened the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone (Royal Street), which is a great spot for classier tails. And, also, it spins. Pravda on Decatur is good, too, and the Russian theme means a great selection of vodkas. Balcony Music Club (Decatur & Esplanade) has great live music and usually a 1-drink minimum in place of a cover.
Restaurants are hard to recommend without knowing what you'd want just because there are so many options in this city, but Clover Grill (Bourbon & Dumaine) and Camellia Grill (Chartres & Toulouse) are excellent for greasy diner fare. Especially Camellia. And Cafe du Monde is packed with tourists during the day, but is open 24/7 and coffee and beignets are a fantastic drunk food choice. Depending on the length of your stay, though, you'll probably want to look beyond the Quarter to get the most bang for your buck in terms of food. Great options in the CBD, Uptown, and Marigny, all of which are easily accessible by foot or streetcar, and in the Bywater, which would require a relatively cheap cab ride. And, as leemajors suggested, there is a TON of great stuff on the main Uptown drags -- St. Charles, Magazine, Prytania, Oak, and Freret Streets all have pockets of amazing restaurant/bar/entertainment options.
But, seriously, stay off of Bourbon. There are of course tons of people who love that scene, and if you do then at least I know you won't be stealing my spot at a better bar elsewhere, but everyone who has come to visit me has been tired of the Bourbon experience after less than five minutes. It's gross, stinks like , and I'm pretty sure one could get both diseased and pregnant after stepping in one of the many mystery puddles. If you want a version of debauchery that is more true to the city itself head across Esplanade to Frenchman Street. There's still plenty of public drunkenness, but the music is better. There are always multiple local bands playing, both in bars and on the streets, and a ton of bars and restaurants crammed into a two or three block stretch.
Snake & Jake's Christmas Club Lounge, to be exact. And it's still a great late night spot, since it's open from 7pm-9am. Divey as a dive bar can possibly be -- it's literally a shack lit with nothing but a couple of strings of red Christmas lights -- and it gets packed with Tulane/Loyola students starting at about 1-2am, but I actually kind of love it before midnight. Being sober makes it hard to ignore the high sketch level, but it's kind of a great, chill, neighborhood bar and the bartenders are hilarious when it's quiet/empty enough to actually strike up a conversation.
I echo the "steer clear of Bourbon street" advice. If you absolutely just have to be there so you can say you went then hit it up in the afternoon, grab a hurricane at Pat O's and be out of there before the night life starts up. Cucking Funt's advice is pretty much right in line with what my aunts and uncles in Nawlins have told my brothers and I.
The sentiments of many friends who went out that way for Spring Break or Mardi Gras ended up sounding like Seth Rogen talking about the donkey show in 40 Year Old Virgin: you go there thinking it's going to be a wall to wall party packed with booze and music, that's ing awesome! And then you get there...and it's a wall to wall party packed with music and booze that you now get the get the honor of smelling and trying to navigate.
My friends and I are in the 24-25 age group so we are lookin to get crazy. Thanks for all the advice.
If you have never gone to Bourbon Street, it's cool to experience it as long as it's not Mardi Gras or Jazzfest. It's too crazy then. But while it's disgusting, it's a unique experience. And if you're in your early 20s, the disgusting nature doesn't bother you as much. But there are cooler bars north of Bourbon and even on Decatur and on the tracks leading up to Bourbon. I mostly stayed uptown so the college bars like Balcony or the Boot were closer places I'd frequent. Mapleleaf was cool on nights they had live brass bands playing.
Lol Snake and Jakes brings back memories. I don't think I ever stopped by there earlier than 3 am. It was always the last spot if you still wanted to drink or if you were looking for weed.
Oh, and my last bit of advice would be to do research before you get here -- with maps and everything -- because the city can be a bit overwhelming and you'll miss the good stuff. And I don't just mean overwhelming in terms of the number of options, but also in the sense that this can be a difficult city to navigate. The Quarter is tiny and organized as a grid, so it's easy to just meander around and find things to do (one of the reasons so many tourists come and get stuck there the whole time), but the rest of the city is confusing as . Streets don't run in any consistent direction, new neighborhoods mean new street names and orientations, and so forth. If you have any intention of going beyond the Quarter (which, again, I strongly recommend), you'll want to at least have an idea of where you want to go and where things are geographically located within the city. Even living here for a while and feeling pretty confident in my bearings, it's ridiculously easy to get turned around without a consistent north/south orientation.
That's what's up.
Then you were doing it wrong.
haha. So, I'm assuming the bars are open past 2 a.m. unlike SA
Thankfully.
Not all places but certain dive bars known mostly by locals. There was this other bar I think it was called Vonn's... I think. Open til sunrise. Put your nuts on the bar, you'd get free shots.
The back patio bar at Snake and Jakes was where we would go after Bruno's and Phillips. Damn those were some good times.
You will find many options of bars open till sunrise, especially on or near Bourbon St. Some of the uptown bars were also already mentioned here, but a couple of others closer to bourbon that come to mind are Gold Mine (right off of Bourbon) and Red Eye (warehouse district).
Yup we'd go to Phillips at least once a week. Is Cooter Brown's still open? That was a cool dive bar. Every beer imagineable. Is Brunos one of the campus bars? If it's the one I'm thinking they used to have penny pitcher Wednesdays.
Get out of the tourist trap and go to "Fat City" in the Metairie area out by airport AND see the real NOLA .....Its where the locals go and party
Cooter Brown's is indeed still open, and I still go there often for a shrimp poboy and the best beer selection in the city. I live on St. Charles Ave. so I can get there in about 3 mins.
Bruno's was one of the Maple St. campus bars, right next to TJ's, Phillips, Vera Cruz, etc. But the Wednesday penny pitchers was at Waldo's, not Bruno's.
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