Good Friends Bar

Good Friends Bar is the gay neighbourhood bar that exists one block off Bourbon Street's noise and spectacle, and the difference between the two is exactly what makes Good Friends what it is. Located on Dauphine Street, the bar operates on the human scale of a local institution: a pool table, a jukebox, a bar that serves without ceremony, and a crowd of regulars who have been coming for years alongside visitors who have been told — correctly — that this is the French Quarter gay bar that feels most like a real bar rather than a tourist attraction. The bar opened in 1989 and has developed the quality of accumulated community memory that only time produces. The atmosphere is welcoming without the performative welcome of a venue that has calculated its hospitality. The Queen's Head Pub upstairs operates separately and adds to the building's capacity. Good Friends is the correct answer for visitors who want a gay bar in the French Quarter but do not want the 24-hour nightclub experience of Bourbon Street — an earlier evening start, a proper conversation, a cold beer, and the particular pleasure of a bar that knows what it is and does it consistently well. The Dauphine Street location is a short walk from both the Bourbon Street clubs and the quieter residential blocks of the French Quarter that most tourists do not reach.