Balcony Bar & Cafe
1104 Harmony St. (Uptown, Magazine St.)
Reason: You don’t want to impress the bar and the bar doesn’t want to impress you back.
Drink: $2 Highlifes. Only the champagne of beers for this champagne of bars.
Drank: $2 Mickey’s. Malt liquor (double the pleasure!) + puzzles under the cap (double the fun!)
Drunk: Whatever else they sell at Balcony Bar for $2. (I’m assuming the bartenders adore me here.)
mindless musings:
The Rum House catching on fire. Plenty of late night couples disputes. A shooting star. These are just a few of the things I’ve had the pleasure viewing atop the balcony of this fine establishment.
You will find these things and much more if you choose to enjoy Balcony Bar while:
- out on the balcony, overlooking Magazine Street, enjoying the fine Louisiana weather well into the night, accompanied by your favorite friends and favorite beers.
And you won’t find these things and you will find much less if you choose to experience Balcony Bar while:
- on the inside of Balcony Bar.
Literally, unless you’re walking in to retrieve your pizza (anything but plain cheese is great) there is absolutely no reason to subject yourself to the innards of this bar. I wanted to post this sentence next: It’s not like there’s actually blood and fish guts strewn about but it’s reminiscent of a fish that has been gutted and left to rot. But I won’t. It’s just that personally; Balcony Bar doesn’t return me any favors aside from a great balcony and decent pizza. The rest of the bar isn’t awful as much as it’s just incredibly laid back. It’s definitely not somewhere that you will find a hopping party hiding around the corner.
If you’re rebellious, mysterious, or an older patron, you will likely enjoy the downstairs area. And if you’re a hipster, young professional or generally a younger-aged patron, you will likely skim right through the downstairs area and head up to your perching post on the balcony. I’m not sure if it’s because the stairs are too steep and scary for the former bunch but it’s a little eerie how stark the difference is between the downstairs and upstairs areas of this place. I.e.: dance parties upstairs are likely to be welcomed while dance parties in the middle of downstairs are likely to result in criticizing stares. (Even after you decide to head back inside for one more drink after waiting for a cab for 30 minutes, and you now have six Mickey’s to drink because of the $10 minimum, and your group is desperate to find a way to pass the time, and it’s only 11pm but your first drink was had at a 2:30 LSU kick off… No matter how positively impressive you think your dance moves are at this moment… the downstairs crowd will still not be grateful for the dance party you are trying to create. Trust me.)
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| The Dreaded Downstairs VS. |
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| The Beauteous Balcony |
So to recap this unusually uninspiring establishment on Magazine Street - it’s not going to rock your world like some of the other Nola bars I have spotlighted on this blog. BUT with some bias, I biweekly, with breaks in between, am bunched up beside my besties bringin down brews on the beautiful balcony at Balcony Bar. I can’t explain the madness. Perhaps I have an affinity for the letter B. Or by chance it’s an awkward obsession with balconies (as I have somehow mentioned them 12 times in this post alone). But it’s likely that I keep going back because Balcony Bar easily reiterates my favorite saying:
“In the end it’s not where you are but who you’re with that really matters”
– DMB(alcony)
“Laissez les bon temps rouler”
- Barbara Bush
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| Four friends sans one Mexican friend |
Insider Tips:
(1) Not that you don’t carry it with you anyway, but be sure to have your ID on hand as there is a doorman most nights of the week and he is perfectly comfortable with rejecting your entrance. Even those who are small, quick, Mexican and squeaked in through the back door have been recognized three hours later and promptly kicked out.
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| The Manslaughtering Stairs |
(2) Also we’re all lucky it hasn’t happened yet, so please follow the trend of not falling down the incredibly steep stairs and dying.
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