Café Lafitte in Exile at Bourbon and Dumaine has run continuously since 1933, the bar that opened after Café Lafitte was evicted from 941 Bourbon, claimed as America's oldest gay bar.
Tip: Open 24 hours. The Sunday Napoleon House drag brunch carries on across the bar; Tea Dance Sunday afternoons are the institutional draw.
Address: 901 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, LA 70116
Bourbon Pub & Parade at Bourbon and St Ann is the corner gay bar with the open-balcony downstairs pub and the upstairs Parade dance floor, drag and DJ shows running through Southern Decadence.
Tip: Downstairs open 12:00 onwards; the Parade dance floor opens at 21:00 weekends. Cover for some weekend nights, none for the pub.
Oz on Bourbon Street, opened in 1993 across from Bourbon Pub, runs the big-floor gay dance club with dancers on the platforms, a drag cast and a long balcony over the street.
Tip: Open seven nights, 12:00 to 04:00 Thursday to Sunday. Drag shows nightly; weekend cover charged at the door.
Bourbon Pub & Parade at Bourbon and St Ann is the corner gay bar with the open-balcony downstairs pub and the upstairs Parade dance floor, drag and DJ shows running through Southern Decadence.
Tip: Downstairs open 12:00 onwards; the Parade dance floor opens at 21:00 weekends. Cover for some weekend nights, none for the pub.
Oz on Bourbon Street, opened in 1993 across from Bourbon Pub, runs the big-floor gay dance club with dancers on the platforms, a drag cast and a long balcony over the street.
Tip: Open seven nights, 12:00 to 04:00 Thursday to Sunday. Drag shows nightly; weekend cover charged at the door.
The Phoenix on Elysian Fields opened in 1983 as the leather, bear and Levi command bar of the Marigny, with the upstairs Eagle running its own dress-coded fetish nights Wednesday to Sunday.
Tip: Open 24 hours, no cover. Upstairs Eagle closed Mondays. The Levi-Leather Lords of Leather host regular fetish nights.
Bacchanal Wine in Bywater runs an outdoor backyard with nightly live jazz, a wine and cheese deli inside the cottage and Mediterranean small plates plated from the kitchen upstairs.
Tip: Music seven days a week. Pick a bottle from the shop, take it to the back patio. Weekend brunch sets start around 12:00.
Three Muses on Frenchmen pairs a small-plates kitchen with a low-volume music room, where Linnzi Zaorski and the Sam Doores rotate through the corner stage from early evening.
Tip: Reserve a table via the venue site; the bar walks in. Music starts around 19:00 with no cover, the room enforces quiet listening.
Compère Lapin's bar, inside the Old No. 77 Hotel, is Nina Compton's Caribbean-French cocktail room, with an exposed brick warehouse wall, mosaic floor and a long zinc-topped bar.
Tip: Walk in for the bar, Resy for tables. Order the goat curry with sweet potato gnocchi; the dirty rice arancini are the house snack.