#2474 - Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge, New Orleans - 3/21/2014

Snake & Jake's Christmas Club Lounge, New Orleans.LA

A few years ago, in a dive bar in Renton, Washington, I was discussing our mutual love of dives with a fellow there and he told me, "I like bars that have Christmas lights up all year round." That struck me as pithy and particularly evocative description of these places we both liked. I'm quite confident that this fellow never went to Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge, for otherwise he surely would included it at the top of the list of suggestions he gave me.

For people like me and my fellow barfly of that night, one look at a photo of Snake and Jake's guarantees that we will be there some day. How to describe it? Let's allow the owner have a go: "Decrepit chic is the best I could describe Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge. It's really a tin shack. I would call it the tin shack shit hole or late night bar." (Owner Dave Clements)  A lot of the descriptions include "shed, "shack" or "garage," but from the outside it looks less like any of those than like a loosely assembled fort thrown together by 12-year-olds in a junkyard. A bartender explains that the bar is held together with "nicotine and regret." (ibid)

Snake & Jake's Christmas Club Lounge, New Orleans.LA

And despite that -- let's be honest, largely because of that -- the bar is said to have hosted Anthony Bourdain, George Clooney, Jude Law, Quentin Tarantino, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and erstwhile nextdoor neighbor Dr. John. Inside its dark confines they mix with students from nearby Tulane, slackers, rockers, artists and old fogeys -- although it can be hard to recognize any of them in the dim glow of the red Christmas lights that account for most the visible light.

The bar is well off the beaten track in a residential neighborhood in the Uptown area. It opens at 7pm, doesn't close until 7am, and doesn't really get going until 1am or 3am ("Snake-o-clock"), depending on who you talk to. If you are bar hopping it is sure to be your last stop of the night. The regulars are eclectic, funny, and sardonic. This character was even on display after Hurricane Katrina, when TV news showed the roof of the building with a message for the FEMA rescue helicopters, "NEED ICE." Their house drink is called a "Possum Drop," an homage to a night when a ceiling tile with a live possum crashed onto a patron's head.

Snake & Jake's Christmas Club Lounge, New Orleans.LA

The bar and house behind it once belonged to Richard "Snake" Brown. It was called the “S&J Lounge" back then, and the current name is simply a combination of this and an even earlier one. Dave Clements has explained, "When my partner and I bought the property many, many years ago, it was an existing bar called S&J. It had a sign up. We also had the sign from the previous bar, which was The Christmas Lounge, named after a man called Sam Christmas. They had Christmas lights in there, but it was actually his last name. I didn’t find that out for years until he was riding down the street one day, and some guy went, ‘There goes Sam Christmas!’ And I go, ‘What?’ I really can’t remember who came up with the combination, but ‘Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge’ sort of rolled off the tongue. So that’s what we named the bar.”

The secret has long been out. Snake and Jake's is commonly included in lists of the country's best dive bars and best bars in New Orleans. Several call it the best dive bar in the world. And I can't think of any compelling argument to the contrary.


7612 Oak St, New Orleans, LA 70118 - (504) 861-2802
Est. 1994
Previous bars in this location: The Christmas Lounge, S&J Lounge
Web site: snakeandjakes.com
Articles ranked: huffpo - bucketlist (video) - fridayatfive - vice - mcclainjohnson - medianola - nola.com - noladefender - nola.com - stereophile - eater - nolaspeax - twistedsouth - whereyat - ipi.mobi - yelp - tripadvisor - daringpenguin - laskowitzpictures - notesonneworleans - bestofneworleans - flights.com - pastemagazine

#2473 - Galatoire's, New Orleans - 3/21/2014

The whooping we heard coming from the elegant dining room, the bartender informed us, was Tennessee Williams' granddaughter. But of course it was -- here in the restaurant that has been here since 1905, here where her grandfather preferred the seat near the main front window and which he inserted into A Streetcar Named Desire.

The bar section was nearly empty this time of night, far from the thronged lunch and dinner hours, where before they started taking reservations recently the line would stretch down Bourbon Street to Iberville. After 5pm, jackets are still absolutely required for men, as they have been since 1905, when local saloon keeper Jean Galatoire purchased a restaurant called Victors in this space, which had already hosted such establishments for half a century. Jean served French Creole cuisine that included dishes from the small village in which he had grown up, in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. His family owned and operated the eponymous restaurant for five generations, before finally selling all but a few minor ownership shares in 2009.

We had a nice, sedate nightcap -- something like a sazerac, which virtually every New Orleans bar can make well -- and along with a bowl of French Onion soup. Then we made our way down Bourbon Street, the gay laughter of the playwright's granddaughter and her friends fading into unknown stories.

209 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70130 - (504) 525-2021               
Est. 1905
Web site: galatoires.com - facebook
Reviews: esquire - nola.com - neworleans.com - thedailybeast - palmbeachillustrated - yelp - tripadvisor - neworleansonline - coolinaryneworleans

#2472 - Cafe Amelie, New Orleans - 3/21/2014

Cafe Amelie is one of the best options in New Orleans for brunch and is especially loved for the portion in a 150-year-old courtyard. It is named for Amelie Miltonberger, who lived nearby and gave birth to Alice Heine, who eventually left the French Quarter to marry Prince Albert I and become the princess of Monaco. The bar is sufficient, and the food quite fine, but it is temperate, sunny days amidst the fountains and foliage that make it memorable.

912 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 412-8965
Est. 2005
Web site: cafeamelie.com - facebook
Articles ranked: neworleansrestaurants - notesonneworleans - lettucespoon - thefabliss - memeing - yelp - musingsofthebigredcar 

#2471 - Tonique, New Orleans - 3/20/2014

If you like craft cocktails and you're in New Orleans you go to Tonique. Tonique is often included in lists of top cocktail bars in the city or the entire country. On this visit I particularly enjoyed a Bitter Harvest Cocktail (Bernheim's Wheat Whiskey, St. Elizabeth Allspice dram, Averna Amaro, Bitter Truth orange bitters)

There are a few other attractions -- it also functions as an affordable, neighborhood beer bar with several cocktails at $5 before 5pm, and even an extensive menu of non-alcoholic classics. It can also come as a soothing, welcome respite from the more gregarious regions of the French Quarter. But these are the things you use to convince your odd teetotaler friend to come along -- YOU will come for the cocktails.


820 N Rampart St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 324-6045
Est. 2008
Web site: bartonique.com - facebook
Articles ranked: neworleans.com - nola.com - nola.com - offbeat - nytimes - gonola - nola.com - thefabliss - neworleansonline - liquor.com - tripadvisor - yelp

#2470 - Bourbon Pub and Parade, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

When I come in the TVs are replaying Pink's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from the Oscars show and the entire bar area is entranced -- with most of the patrons are gesturing and mouthing the words.The Bourbon Pub, along with rival Oz across the street, are party central for clubbing gays in New Orleans. "Michael Paul Castrillo, who worked as a bartender at Oz in the early 2000s, recalls a rivalry between Oz and Bourbon Pub and Parade that was so heated that each of the bar's managers would send over customers or staffers to the other's place to spy on the crowd, get a head count and report back." (nola.com)  They are both large clubs (this one slightly larger), with multiple bars on two floors, and both open 24 hours.


801 Bourbon St, New Orleans, LA 70116 - (504) 529-2107
Est. 1974
Web site: bourbonpub.com - facebook
Reviews: gaycities - huffpo - yelp - tripadvisor

#2469 - Cutter's, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Neighborhood bar in the Marigny, known as gay but a mixed crowd, with tailgate buffets for Saints games and free red beans and rice on Mondays,

706 Franklin Ave, New Orleans, LA 70117 - (504) 948-4200
Reviews: nola.com - yelp - gaycities

#2468 - Big Daddy's, New Orleans - 3/19/2014

Big Daddy's, Marigny, New Orleans

Not to be confused with the identically named, only recently closed strip club with the iconic mannequin legs swinging over Bourbon Street, this Big Daddy's is a relatively placid, unassumingly gay, unapologetically divey bar in the Marigny. It is open 24 hours, many of them with a small, mostly older crowd mixed with young people who swing in when Mimi's across the street is clowded, closed, or just to full of hipsters. But as one article notes, "It's not unusual to find the place nearly empty at 8 p.m. and crowded at 8 a.m."

Both the staff and patrons are friendly, and we chatted with Edgar Riley Jr., who played with Frank Zappa and was most notably the vocalist and keyboardist for 80s metal band Axe. The band toured with acts like KISS, Ozzy, and Judas Priest before breaking up after a tragic auto accident in which one member was badly injured and another killed.

2513 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70117 - (504) 948-6288
Reviews: nola.com - yelp - gaycities