Markey's Bar, Bywater.

The Bywater corner that refused to gentrify with the neighbourhood.

Markey's Bar opened in 1947 as a working-class corner serving the dock workers and ferry crews who lived in Bywater. The neighbourhood has changed beyond recognition: artists arrived in the 1990s, then chefs, then the Marigny spillover crowd, then Airbnb. Markey's has changed approximately not at all. The same family ran it from 1947 until 2014, when a long-time bartender bought the lease and made a written commitment to leave the bar's pricing and decor as it was.

The room is medium-sized: a rectangular floor with a long bar on the right wall, six booths along the left, a small kitchen visible through a counter cutout at the back. The walls are painted a yellowed cream that has been the same colour since 1968. Four ceiling fans turn slowly above the bar all year. The room smells of the kitchen first, the bar second.

Why this matters. Markey's is the proof that a Bywater corner can hold its 1947 prices and 1947 menu through twenty-five years of neighbourhood gentrification, if the lease is right and the new owner cares.

The roast beef po'boy at midnight.

The Markey's kitchen serves a single signature item: a roast beef po'boy on Leidenheimer's French bread, with debris (the gravy-soaked beef shreds), gravy, mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickle. The sandwich is twelve dollars. The kitchen runs from 11am for lunch and reopens from 5pm to 1am for the late shift. The midnight po'boy is the bar's defining ritual.

The Bywater dock and ferry workers used to finish shifts between 11pm and 1am. The kitchen's late hour was set in 1947 to accommodate them. The dock workers are mostly gone now, but the kitchen hours are unchanged. The midnight po'boy is now ordered by Bywater's late-shift restaurant cooks, the bartenders ending shifts elsewhere, and the occasional Marigny tourist who has read about the sandwich. The bartender will serve it on a paper plate at the bar, with a stack of napkins.

The Sidney Bechet, a Sazerac, an Abita Amber.

• The Sidney Bechet: nine dollars. Bourbon, mint, sugar, soda, served in a tall rocks glass with a sprig of mint. Named for the New Orleans-born jazz clarinetist (1897-1959), invented at Markey's in 1985.
• The Louis Armstrong: ten dollars. Rye, lemon, honey, ginger, served on the rocks. The bar's second jazz cocktail, invented in 1990.
• Sazerac: eleven dollars. The classic, made with the bar's house rye.
• Abita Amber: five dollars draft. The Louisiana lager.
• The thing nobody knows: the bar pours a small Old Forester at four dollars from a bottle on the back shelf that has been there since the 1990s. Order the "house Forester." The bartender will pour it without ice.

Sunday at 4pm. The Bywater regulars hour.

Markey's opens at 11am for lunch and closes at 2am. Sunday at 4pm is the canonical Bywater hour: the bar is half full, the booths are open, the post-brunch regulars from Bywater drink slowly with the Sunday Times-Picayune, the ceiling fans are working a humid afternoon. Order a Sidney Bechet, take the second booth from the back.

The peak hour is Friday and Saturday between 9pm and midnight, when Bywater fills up with Marigny spillover and the booths require a wait. The midnight po'boy is best on a Tuesday or Wednesday at 11pm: the bar is half empty, the kitchen is plating fast, the bartenders pour slowly, the regular at the next stool may know the kitchen cook by name.

Mondays the kitchen closes at 9pm. The bar stays open until 2am. If you arrive on Monday at midnight expecting the po'boy, you will not get it.

Why the well drinks are named for the dead.

Markey's has a small but distinct cocktail menu of seven house drinks, each named for a New Orleans jazz musician who died before 1995. The Sidney Bechet, the Louis Armstrong, the Buddy Bolden, the Joe King Oliver, the Jelly Roll Morton, the Kid Ory, the Pete Fountain. Each cocktail was invented at Markey's between 1985 and 1995 by the original family's bar manager, who was a serious jazz historian and named each drink after a musician who had been dead at least twenty years at the time of invention.

The new owner has not added new cocktails to this list. The Markey's jazz cocktail list is closed at seven. No new musicians will be added. This is a deliberate editorial choice: the seven musicians are the seven musicians. If you want to drink something not in the list, you order a Sazerac or an Abita.

Thirty-five dollars per person, with a po'boy.

Plan for thirty to forty dollars per person for a three-hour visit including the po'boy. Two Sidney Bechets at nine, one Abita Amber at five, twelve dollars for the po'boy, twenty percent tip. A pair of friends drinks and eats for sixty-five dollars total. Add another five dollars for a shared cup of the kitchen's gumbo if it is a Sunday.

Cards are accepted. Cash is preferred for the kitchen tip, which goes to the cook on shift. Two dollars per drink in cash on the bar is the local norm.

The Bywater holdouts and the Marigny spillover crowd.

Markey's draws three populations. The first: long-tenure Bywater residents in their forties, fifties, and sixties, many of whom have lived in the neighbourhood since before the 1990s arts wave. The second: the Marigny spillover crowd, looking for cheaper drinks and a more local atmosphere than the Frenchmen Street bars provide. The third: the late-shift restaurant industry, particularly cooks from Bacchanal Wine and the other Bywater dining rooms.

You will find a small Airbnb tourist contingent on weekend evenings, mostly couples in their thirties looking for a "real Bywater" experience. The bar treats them politely. The bartenders will tell them about Sidney Bechet if asked. They will not tell them about the kitchen's late hours unless asked twice.

How not to be the worst person at Markey's.

• Do not request a "Wynton Marsalis" cocktail. The list is closed at seven and Marsalis is alive.
• Do not order the po'boy without specifying "dressed." The dressed version (lettuce, tomato, mayo, pickle) is the canonical order.
• Do not photograph the kitchen. The cook is working in a small space and the photograph blocks the counter cutout.
• Do not bring a stag party. The bar will not refuse but the booths will fill with regulars who will move to the bar instead.
• Do not arrive after 1am expecting the po'boy. The kitchen closes at 1am sharp.
• Do not use the front door if the door is propped open with a brick. The brick is the air conditioning indicator. Use the side door.
• Do not, ever, ask for vegan options. The bar serves a roast beef po'boy. There are no vegan options. Eat first.

Bacchanal, Markey's, the Country Club.

The classic Bywater evening: dinner at Bacchanal Wine on Chartres at 7pm, the wine and small-plates institution on the river. Walk five blocks south to Markey's at 9pm for two Sidney Bechets and a midnight po'boy at 11pm. End at the Country Club on Louisa at midnight for one more drink and the bar's small back garden.

For more bars in the area, see our New Orleans city guide, the hidden gems list, and the Lafitte's entry.

Yes. Bywater's most reliable corner.