A Mardi Gras Season to Leap About

Carnival season in New Orleans is like no other city because our celebration lasts a full two weeks before the big day. If you count 12th night, the 12th night of Christmas, Mardi Gras really lasts about a month, but I think that just makes us eat more King Cake and drink more cocktails- - as if we needed to even drink any more than we already do.

We start the day of Mardi Gras early in the Marigny at the R bar which still offers comfortable drink prices providing relief since ,most bars in the quarter are in the raise the prices, tourist mode. Press comments were comical this year because they covered the "new" locals Mardi Gras in the Marigny. We have been hanging with the St Ann Parade for over ten years now so this cultural aspect of the big day is certainly not new to us or many of our friends.

Mardi Gras day of course is the end of the marathon for everyone, and not all folks can survive the pace. Between two full weekends of parading, endless carnival balls, and simply popping around town to the private parties, you have to have some level of NOLA stamina. We enjoy watching our guests either make it or crash, and then secretly betting on the ones that cannot make it quite to the end. Our annual tradition of closing the day at Tujague's Restaurant, home of the Grasshopper Cocktail, has been going on for so many years that local novelist Poppy Tooker wrote us into her book on the restaurant. This year was a bittersweet end since Tujague's has lost the lease to the original location and will be moving down the street. We're happy they are not closing, but moving from original historical, locations is always a challenge. As we left the premises for our last Mardi Gras, we were happy to toast to Steven Latter and the Crown Royal chair.

R Bar

1431 Royal Street

504-948-7499

http://www.royalstreetinn.com/

Tujague's

823 Decatur Street

504-525-8676

https://tujaguesrestaurant.com/