The Regulars: Neighborhood Bars and Why They Matter to New Orleans

Photo by Matthew Noel
More than anything else, we are among the last holdouts of a vanishing breed in America: a city of neighborly drinkers.
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
Eventually we came to articulate what we’d instinctively known all along: Bars here are about a lot more than just getting blotto.
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
In New Orleans, neighborhoods don’t exist in spite of bars but in conjunction with them.
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
What’s different about us is that we never followed the rest of the country in seeing drinking as sordid or seedy. You don’t allow activities that you see as dirty into the center of your neighborhoods.”
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
Photo by Matthew Noel
They aren’t about pricey craft cocktails, and show-offs can expect more stink eye with their orders than accuracy.