Where New Orleans eats
The French Quarter, anchored by Bourbon Street and Jackson Square, runs almost entirely on tourist volume, with restaurants pricing Cajun and Creole dishes at 20 to 40 dollars an entree and bars serving to-go drinks late into the night. The Warehouse District and Central Business District serve convention and business travelers near the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Magazine Street, running through the Garden District and Uptown, holds a long corridor of independent restaurants serving a mixed local and tourist crowd at 18 to 30 dollars. Frenchmen Street in Faubourg Marigny draws a more local, late night music crowd to smaller restaurants and bars than Bourbon Street's tourist volume. Neighborhoods like Mid-City and Bywater carry po boy shops and neighborhood restaurants serving residents at lower price points, largely bypassed by convention and cruise ship tourist dollars. Streetcar lines along St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street connect Uptown restaurant corridors to downtown and the French Quarter, shaping where tourist foot traffic naturally flows. A French Quarter restaurant built for cruise ship and convention volume earns far less on weeks when no major convention books the Morial Center.
