The best dive bars in New Orleans are not hard to find — the city has more of them per capita than almost anywhere in the country. What is harder is finding the ones that are actually worth your time as opposed to tourist traps dressed in dive bar clothing. We have been doing the research for years. These are the spots that hold up every visit, and we recommend them without qualification.
The French Quarter Dives That Survive the Tourism
The French Quarter has a reputation for spectacle, and for good reason. But tucked between the daiquiri shops and the ghost tour operators are a handful of bars that have been serving locals since before Bourbon Street became a punch line. These are the ones we return to.
01
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop
Bourbon Street
$
Candlelit / Historic
The oldest bar in the United States, built sometime before 1772 and operating ever since. The building has no electricity — it runs entirely on candlelight after dark — which gives it an atmosphere that no interior designer could replicate. The purple drink is a tourist trap. Order a Abita Amber and sit in the back corner. The regulars are the ones who look like they have nowhere else to be, and they are correct.
Order: Abita Amber draft, cold
02
Erin Rose
French Quarter
$
Industry Bar / No-Nonsense
The unofficial bar of New Orleans restaurant industry workers, which means it operates on a different schedule from the rest of the city. The frozen Irish coffee is the drink of record — cold, strong, and made to a recipe that has not changed in decades. The back room is cramped and the bar is loud on weekends. Go on a Monday evening and you will have the place to yourself and twenty exhausted line cooks.
Order: Frozen Irish coffee
03
The Chart Room
French Quarter
$
Cash Only / Midnight Institution
On Chartres Street, away from Bourbon, the Chart Room has been operating as a cash-only dive since 1969. The nautical maps on the wall give it its name and the drinks come fast at prices that feel like a different decade. The jukebox is the best in the Quarter. After midnight, when the tour groups have retreated, this is what a New Orleans bar is actually supposed to feel like.
Order: Bourbon on the rocks, well pour
The complete New Orleans bar guide
Every category from cocktail bars on Magazine Street to the best late-night spots in the Marigny. Our full guide covers 80+ listings.
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Marigny & Bywater: The Local Favourite Dives
Cross Esplanade Avenue and the tourist density drops immediately. The Marigny and Bywater are where New Orleans musicians, artists, and longtime residents drink. The bars here are cheaper, louder, and more honest about what they are.
04
Checkpoint Charlie's
Marigny
$
Live Music Dive / Late Night
Open 24 hours and staffed by bartenders who have seen everything twice. Checkpoint Charlie's books live music seven nights a week — not the polished kind, but the real kind. The laundromat in the back runs all night. The burgers are served until 4am. The pool tables are always occupied. If you arrive at 3am with nowhere to be, this is where you end up.
Order: Tallboy and a shot of whatever is cheapest
05
BJ's Lounge
Bywater
$
Neighbourhood Anchor / Unpretentious
Bywater's oldest dive is a Jell-O shot and a Bud Light kind of place — no craft beer, no cocktails, no interest in becoming anything other than what it has always been. The regulars are fiercely loyal. The Christmas lights stay up year-round. The pool table is free on Tuesdays. BJ's is the bar for people who actually live in New Orleans as opposed to people who are visiting the idea of it.
Order: Bud Light tallboy, no glass
06
The Marigny Brasserie Back Bar
Frenchmen Street
$
Jazz-Adjacent / Relaxed
On Frenchmen Street between the music venues, this back-bar section operates as its own separate dive while the front fills with tourists watching jazz. Duck through the side entrance, ignore the band, and find a quiet corner with a cheap drink. It is the most useful bar on Frenchmen Street precisely because nobody talks about it.
Order: House daiquiri or a draft Abita
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Uptown Dives: Magazine Street and Beyond
Uptown New Orleans has its own dive bar culture — quieter than the Quarter, more domestic, populated by Tulane and Loyola professors and the people who have owned their shotgun houses for thirty years. These bars are where the city drinks after work.
07
Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge
Uptown
$
Midnight Only / Christmas Lights
Open only from midnight to dawn, decorated exclusively in Christmas lights year-round, and located in a building that looks like it should have been condemned decades ago. Snake and Jake's is the most New Orleans bar in New Orleans. The drinks are cheap. The music comes from a battered stereo. The regulars are welcoming in the specific way that people who keep unusual hours are always welcoming of others who keep unusual hours.
Order: Whatever is cold and cheap
08
Cooter Brown's Tavern
Riverbend / Uptown
$$
Beer Bar / Encyclopedic List
Technically too large to be a pure dive, but the spirit is right. Cooter Brown's has been at the Riverbend since 1977 and stocks over 400 beers from around the world, served without ceremony in a bar where the floors are perpetually sticky and the TVs are always tuned to something. The oysters are excellent and cheap. The back porch fills up on autumn evenings.
Order: Any Louisiana craft on draft plus a dozen oysters
09
Delachaise Wine Bar
Uptown
$$
Narrow / Low-Key
A wine bar that operates like a dive — small, dark, no reservations, and popular with people who want a drink without a production around it. The wine list is genuinely good and priced fairly. The bar itself is narrow enough that strangers become acquaintances by default. The cheese plate is the best thing on the menu by a considerable margin.
Order: Glass of whatever the bartender recommends
10
The Avenue Pub
Magazine Street
$$
24-Hour / Beer-Forward
Open 24 hours and home to one of the best draft beer selections in New Orleans. The Avenue Pub occupies a beautiful old shotgun building on St. Charles and operates as a serious beer bar in the front and a neighbourhood dive in the back. The upstairs porch catches the streetcar noise at the right time of night. We recommend it for 2am when everything else has closed.
Order: A rotating Louisiana craft IPA
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Our Verdict on the New Orleans Dive Bar Scene
New Orleans has more bars per square mile than anywhere in the US except possibly Las Vegas, but unlike Vegas, the bars here are old and they carry their history with them. The best dive bars in the city are institutions that have survived hurricanes and pandemics and the endless pressure of tourism. They are still here because they are essential.
Our single recommendation: start at Erin Rose with a frozen Irish coffee at 9pm, walk to Checkpoint Charlie's around midnight for the live music, and end at Snake and Jake's when everything else has closed. That is a New Orleans night.
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