Mid-City · New Orleans
Mid-City runs from Bayou St. John to Canal Street, with City Park at its north edge. This guide starts with coffee at 8:30, walks the sculpture garden, eats a po-boy, follows the bayou and the Lafitte Greenway, and ends with live music on Canal Street.
Native people called Bayou St. John Bayouk Choupic. The French built Fort St. Jean at its lake end in 1701, and the city was founded in 1718 at the river end of the old portage.
City Park covers 1,300 acres, and some of its live oaks are more than 600 years old. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden and a Café Du Monde sit inside it.
The Lafitte Greenway is 2.6 miles long and opened in 2015. It follows a corridor that once held the Carondelet Canal and then a railroad.
Angelo Brocato has served since 1905 and Mandina’s since 1932. Katie’s opened in 1984, and Café Degas has been on Esplanade since 1986.
Hours and menus change. Confirm before you go.
Mid-City · 17 stops · 8:30 AM to last call
Morning · 8:30 AM
Coffee first. Then sculpture.
01 · 8:30 AM
The Station is a coffee shop and bakery on Bienville Street. Its website lists drinks, baked goods and catering, and reviewers mention breakfast sandwiches and a coffee-and-biscuit sandwich.
A third-party listing gives hours of 6:30 AM to 6 PM Tuesday through Saturday and 7:30 AM to 5 PM on Sunday and Monday. The shop’s own site does not post hours, so confirm before you go.
02 · 8:30 AM
The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden sits beside the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park. It has more than 90 sculptures, admission is free and it is open daily. The garden doubled in size in 2019.
Hours are 10 AM to 5 PM in winter and 10 AM to 6 PM in summer. City Park around it covers 1,300 acres, and some of its live oaks are more than 600 years old.
03 · 8:30 AM
Café Du Monde opened a City Park location in the Casino Building, with a grand opening on July 31, 2019. The menu is beignets, three to an order, and café au lait, plus a frozen mocha au lait.
The opening announcement listed 6 AM to midnight Sunday through Thursday and 6 AM to 1 AM Friday and Saturday. The company dates to 1862. The same building holds the City Park gift shop.
Midday · 11:30 AM
Pick a po-boy. Then walk it off.
04 · 11:30 AM
Parkway began as a bakery in the early 1900s. New Orleans Magazine says it opened in 1911. The Southern Foodways Alliance says 1919. Either way, it is on Hagan Avenue a short walk from Bayou St. John.
Roast beef is the order. A 2015 interview with owner Jay Nix says the beef follows his mother’s pot roast recipe and the kitchen roasts roughly a ton a week. The walls hold his collection of New Orleans memorabilia.
05 · 11:30 AM
A neighborhood tavern a few steps from the Fair Grounds. The BBQ shrimp po-boy is its signature dish: sautéed shrimp in New Orleans barbecue sauce on a French bread pistolette. The menu also has gumbo, fried seafood plates and a Bloody Mary.
The website says Liuzza’s is closed on Sundays except when the Saints play. Horse racing at the Fair Grounds runs from November through March, and Jazz Fest fills the track in late April and early May.
06 · 11:30 AM
Native people knew the waterway as Bayouk Choupic and paddled it for centuries. A portage ran between the bayou and the Mississippi, and the French built Fort St. Jean at the lake end in 1701. The city was founded in 1718 at the river end of that route.
The old portage trail, the Grand Route St. John, was later replaced by Esplanade Avenue. Today the banks are a narrow park with small earthen levees. Downtown Mardi Gras Indian tribes meet here for Super Sunday after Carnival.
Afternoon · 2:00 PM
Falafel, a beer and a cannoli.
07 · 2:00 PM
A Mediterranean and falafel restaurant in Faubourg St. John, just off Esplanade. It grew out of the Fat Falafel food truck, which started in November 2012.
A 2015 New Orleans Magazine profile described falafel as ping pong-sized fritters seasoned with cumin, coriander, cayenne and sesame, and a falafel feast for two with hummus, baba ganoush, pickles and flatbread. The menu may have changed since, so check it first.
08 · 2:00 PM
A beer garden on the Lafitte Greenway. Its website advertises 50 draft beers, with the kitchen open until 10 or 11 at night depending on the day.
The Lafitte Greenway runs 2.6 miles from the Basin Street trailhead near Armstrong Park to the Alexander Street trailhead. It opened on November 6, 2015, on a corridor that once carried the Carondelet Canal and then the Southern Railway.
09 · 2:00 PM
Angelo Brocato calls itself a New Orleans tradition since 1905. The menu lists cannoli Siciliana, gelato, biscotti, biscuit tortoni and a signature spumoni of pistachio almond, tutti frutti and lemon with almond whipped cream.
The shop is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 AM to 10 PM and Sunday from 10 AM to 9 PM. It ships cannoli, gelato and biscotti through Goldbelly if you want a box for home.
Evening · 6:30 PM
Pick one table.
10 · 6:30 PM
Ralph’s on the Park sits in a historic building from the 1860s at the edge of City Park. The bar is in the original stables. The menu is seasonal, modern Louisiana cooking built around local farmers, fishers and foragers.
The restaurant stays open all day, with a select bar menu between lunch and dinner. Its website has a reservations link and a main line.
11 · 6:30 PM
A French bistro in a cottage on Esplanade, shaded by live oaks. A 2013 profile says the dining room is a roofed porch with three open sides. It names the bistro a neighborhood favorite since 1986.
OpenTable says Jacques Soulas and Jerry Edgar founded it and that it is named for Edgar Degas, who visited New Orleans in 1872. Its listing shows dinner Tuesday through Sunday, lunch Wednesday through Friday and brunch on weekends.
12 · 6:30 PM
Katie’s says it was established in 1984 and is family-owned. It serves scratch-made Creole comfort food. The site features chargrilled oysters, crab cakes, red beans and rice and a Boudreaux pizza.
Brunch runs until 2 PM on Saturday and all day Sunday, with $25 bottomless mimosas, Bloody Marys and sangria. Wednesday is a three-course steak night, and Thursday has boiled crab legs in season.
13 · 6:30 PM
Mandina’s opened in 1932 and is in its fourth generation of family ownership, according to its website. It serves Creole-Italian home-style food with an emphasis on seafood.
The site shows homemade turtle soup. Photo captions and reviews on the page also mention shrimp remoulade, gumbo, crawfish cakes and catfish almondine.
Night · 9:00 PM
End with a band.
14 · 9:00 PM
Pal’s sits in an old shotgun house on a corner in Faubourg St. John. It was a corner store, then a barroom called Yvonne’s. A 2009 New Orleans Magazine profile says new owners took over in 2002 and describes blue-and-gold paint, a jukebox and air hockey in a rear game room.
A review site describes a neighborhood hangout with rotating food pop-ups indoors and on the patio. No source we could check posts current hours, so call ahead.
15 · 9:00 PM
Two sister venues share one backyard. A bridge connects the deck of Bayou Beer Garden to the courtyard of Bayou Wine Garden. The website says over 40 beers and 30 wines on tap, plus burgers and wine and cheese.
The Bugginoutboils food pop-up appears on game days and select dates, according to the garden’s Instagram posts. Doors open at noon, and the site lists Sunday hours to 10 PM.
16 · 9:00 PM
The building opened as Salvaggio’s Grocery in the mid-1930s, with a bar in the back. It later served the softball park across the street, and Extra Innings was its last name before Hurricane Katrina flooded it in 2005. Ben and Stefanie Markey bought it in late 2006 and opened Mid City Yacht Club on June 21, 2007.
The renovation reused post-Katrina wood, and the wainscoting came from cypress doors thrown out by a nearby funeral home. The name began as a friend’s joke about boating through the neighborhood after the storm.
17 · 9:00 PM
A small music club on Canal Street. Its website says it was voted best small venue in the Gambit readers’ poll, without giving the year. Tickets go through TicketWeb, and the age limit is 18 or 21 depending on the show.
The venue is open when events are listed. Some shows sell out and the site marks cancelled ones, so check the calendar before you go.
Photos come from the sources named in each caption, and most are undated. Parkway, the bayou, Café Du Monde and Café Degas use type plates instead of photos. Hours, menus and ownership change, so confirm before you go. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); the base map is tinted for this page.
