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Bars where Pete has had a Drink (5,608 bars; 1,754 bars in Seattle) - Click titles below for Lists:


Bars where Pete has had a drink

Sunday, October 02, 2016

#2467 - Mimi's in the Marigny, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Mimi's in the Marigny, New Orleans


Mimi's is a really nice couple of bars -- a more neighborhoody joint with a pool table and video games downstairs and a dining room upstairs -- with good cocktails and excellent tapas. But I will miss the old upstairs -- the one still there at the time of this visit, but subsequently relinquished after several years of legal battles with the neighbors. On this night we came upstairs and stepped into a cheery scene of swing dancing, to the beats of a band playing dixieland and roots music. But since 2012, the city has been clamping down on establishments, and in the summer of 2014 Mimi Dykes and her lawyers threw in the towel and converted the upstairs to a dining room, with music events limited to nine a year.


2601 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70117 - (504) 872-9868
Web site: mimismarigny.com - facebook 
Articles ranked: fooddatnola.comnola.com - eater - curbed - roadtrippersyelp - travelandleisurebestofneworleans

#2466 - Saturn Bar, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

The Saturn Bar is one of the greatest dive bars in the country. It hits on virtually all key areas of a dive -- old, old characters, unique personality, strong cheap drinks, personalized decor assembled over many years -- and amps them up to a rare level. We chatted with bartender Bailee Broyard, whose great uncle O'Neil Broyard founded the place in this Bywater location in 1960, and whose father Eric now owns the joint. It was O'Neil who took the building hosting various blue collar bars over the years and transformed it into a cluttered bohemian gathering place and museum of folk art. O'Neil was the one who frame the taxidermied turtle in neon, installed the leopard print booths, collected the art, taxidermy and bric-a-bat -- and it was his friend Mike Frolich who painted the eponymous planet on the ceiling and historical scenes on the walls.

Saturn Bar, New Orleans
After 45 years of running the place, O'Neil died in December 2005, while the Saturn was still closed by Hurricane Katrina, and Eric and Bailee took over. Bailee books alt bands on weekends, and once a month they host one of New Orleans' most popular dance nights, DJ Matt Ulhman and Kristen Zoller's "Mod Night," featuring "exclusively of British Invasion, Motown, and Funk hits from the 1960s and 70s all spun from their original 33 or 45 RPM vinyl." Mod Night happens one Saturday night a month, but you'll have to watch their Facebook page to know exactly which weekend, as this decision is often made a the last minute. (See offbeat) Bailee and Eric cleared enough clutter from the back section to hold dancers and live bands, and you can watch the action from a narrow upper floor that surrounds that section, accessed by a rickety stairway.

Bailee, Saturn Bar, New Orleans
I could carry on about the decor and personality, but as with any truly unique dive, you can gather a lot more from a few more photos than I could communicate in words.









   Saturn Bar, New Orleans
















Saturn Bar, New Orleans (front door)
 

3067 St Claude Ave, New Orleans, LA 70117 - (504) 949-7532
Est. 1960
Web site: saturnbar.com - facebook
Articles ranked: neworleans.com - insidenola - offbeat - arthurmag - nolavie - gonola - nola.com - bestofneworleans - yelp - tripadvisor - lonelyplanet - roadtrippers

#2465 - Bamboula's, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Bamboula's, New Orleans
Frenchmen street was named for five French revolutionaries who sparked the first anti-colonial revolt in the Americas, and for their efforts were executed by the Spanish on this very street in 1769. One step into Bamboula's and it is easy to sense its role in a modern battle for the soul of Frenchmen St.

The place feels like it was meant to be a huge party place, with tourists downing sugary drinks from outsized, kitchy containers, with names like "Purple Gators," and stumbling on to the next destination. Of course this stokes fears among locals that the area is becoming another Bourbon Street, and these capacious new clubs rumble into skirmishes engaged now on the battlefields of opinion pieces and licensing restrictions.

Bamboula's, New Orleans
From my position overlooking the conflict, I am compelled to support the side resisting the blitzkrieg of large nightclubs moving in. By the time I first visited New Orleans, the Frenchman Street area was nigh perfect. "It's where the locals go out," we were repeatedly informed, as if they were especially selecting us to be let in on the secret. And it was easy to see why: the nights were humming with small venues like the Spotted Cat, Snug Harbor, and Blue Nile, churning out hot jazz in lovely, intimate settings, with a late street art market lit by string-lights, and little evidence of the crass excesses of Bourbon.  For someone who loves to make the occasional visit, there was absolutely no question about your desire to preserve it as is.

Then again, I would not have a very good answer for Andre Laborde. I read about Andre in some online articles, most notably a couple in the Times-Picayune by Richard Webster. The building that holds Bamboula's used to be LaBorde’s Printers. It's been owned by Andre's family since 1945. Andre was born here in 1958, just as the thriving business area was collapsing into squalor. He tells Webster, "When I was 10 years old I would stand on Frenchmen lighting firecrackers and I was the only one on the street. On Halloween we'd literally have nobody out there."

Andre now leases the building to the owners of Bamboula's, and he's supported their efforts to get licensed to focus on music and drinks rather than a restaurant, because it is the former that brings in the crowds. "Someone asked me why I didn't lease the space to a hardware store or a bakery," he tells Webster, "I had a 'for lease' sign out there for 14 months and no one came to talk to me about putting in a bakery. Southern Living magazine named this one of the hottest streets in the world for music. It wasn't named the hottest street for hardware stores or say, 'If you want Kaiser rolls go to Frenchmen Street.'" (Ibid)

Some of this is probably inevitable in any thriving city, and while we may try to hold back the sterile condos and bewail the loss of character and affordability in one neighborhood after another, we must also admit that these problems pale when compared to neighborhoods and cities going the other direction. Residents of the Lower Ninth Ward must pine for problems like over gentrification. But the fact that there are worse fates should not dissuade us from being wary of forces that can eliminate the character and personality that made people want to these places in the first place, especially in places as important as New Orleans.

And so, finally, I get back to Bamboula's. It will never be one of my favorite places, but Bamboula's is here, and one of the great things about New Orleans is choice, which definitely includes the possibility of the right band or friends pulling me into Bamboula's and having another great time in the city. As C.W. Cannon notes, "What makes Frenchmen Street a more exciting total experience than similar thoroughfares in Nashville, Memphis, or Austin, is the same thing Bourbon Street has going for it: public drinking. It turns a street rife with music clubs into a unified festival experience that takes root in the public space and thus defines an entire area." (thelens)  Any new option can add to that experience, and while our visit on this particular night was unremarkable, on any given day any with nightly live music in the French Quarter or Marigny can be part of something sublime.


514 Frenchmen St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 944-8461
Est. 2013
Web site: bamboulasnola.comclubbamboulas.com - facebook
Reviews: axsyelp - tripadvisor
Changes in Frenchmen Street:  nola.com -  thelensnola - nola.com - myneworleans

Saturday, October 01, 2016

#2464 - Three Muses, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Three Muses opened in 2010 in an intimate space right on Frenchman Street in the Marigny, with live music, local beers, finespun cocktails, and a menu of elegant international small plates meant to be shared. The limited spaces are quickly filled in the evening but well worth seeking out.

Three Muses, Frenchmen Street, New Orleans

Three Muses, Frenchmen St, New Orleans
Three Muses, Frenchmen Street, New Orleans

536 Frenchmen St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 252-4801
Est. 2010
Web site: 3musesnola.com - thethreemuse.com - facebook 
Reviews: neworleans.com - yelp - neworleansonline

#2463 - Fritzel's European Jazz Pub, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Fritzel's, the oldest running jazz club in New Orleans, was established in 1969 by Gunter "Dutch" Seutter and it still features traditional Dixieland jazz seven nights a week right on Bourbon Street.

733 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 586-4800
Est. Oct 1969 - Building constructed: 1831
Web site: fritzelsjazz.net - facebook
Articles ranked: gonola - neworleansisamazing - nola.com - yelp - allaboutjazz - culturetrip - neworleansonline

#2462 - Dry Dock Cafe, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Dry Dock Cafe, Algiers, New Orleans
A family cafe with a cozy bar area that feels like a 70s fern bar, the Dry Dock serves some nice gumbo and crawfish and traditional bar foods along with New Orleans staples. The video on the cafe's web site says you'll meet some characters, and indeed we did. But the most animated conversation was over the re-stocking of the cigarette machine -- who smoke what, what I never seen no one buy, and punctuated with a lot of "What I'm trying to tell ya"s -- and which lasted virtually our entire lunch.

133 Delaronde St, Algiers neighborhood, New Orleans, LA 70114 - (504) 361-8240
Est. 1989
Web site: thedrydockcafe.com - facebook
Reviews: yelp - nola.com - nola.com - untappdbestofneworleans

#2461 - Old Point Bar, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Old Point Bar, Algiers, New Orleans

From the Canal Street terminal it's just $2 to take a ferry across the Mississippi to the old Algiers neighborhood, settled in 1719 and annexed by New Orleans in 1870. Like the French Quarter itself, there are lots of pretty old houses and buildings to look at, many Victorian style, constructed shortly after a devastating fire in 1895. If you're only going to visit for a couple hours or so, you can go in the evening and enjoy good music at the Old Point Tavern most every night, and without a cover. We chose to go during the day, when we could take in a bit more of suggested walking tours, but the Old Point was nevertheless our primary destination.

Old Point Bar, Algiers, New Orleans
The site of the Old Point hosted a bar as far back as the 1840s, although then the saloons were usually described as "coffee houses" in the city directories. The current building opened as a dry goods store in 1905. It became Johnny's Bar in the 70s, and has remained one since. It doesn't have much food, and the drinks are unremarkable, but it is a picturesque dive -- enough that some of the locals refer to it as "Hollywood East" and "the most filmed bar in New Orleans." Films that used it include "Ray," "The Expendables," "Green Lantern," "Contraband," and "Seeking Justice." But on most days it is a quiet, comfortable, neighborhood dive, with a small mix of tourists and Algerines ("AL-jer-reens"), and we chatted with Algerines Jeremy and Sammy. Sammy is a Seahawks fan, friends with several Seattle bands, and, we learned, the owner of the house we passed by with the crazy front yard including a live turkey. We liked the personality and the personalities of the bar and recommend it and the Algiers Point area for anyone who would enjoy a few tranquil hours from the French Quarter.


















Old Point Bar, Algiers, New Orleans


Sammy


Sammy's Yard



Sammy's Turkey














545 Patterson Dr, New Orleans, LA 70114 - (504) 364-0950
Est. ? - Building constructed: 1905
Previous bars in this location: Johnny's
Web site: oldpointbarnola.com - facebook
Articles Ranked: link - crescentcitysoul - nola.com - gonolatv (video) - yelp  - countryroads - culturetrip - bestofneworleans