Jazz Fest Adventures

Four generations of grocers

I don't get out the neighborhood much.  I don't see much reason too.  Esplanade Avenue has everything I need.  They say Boston is a city of neighborhoods.  They haven't been to New Orleans.  We've lived in both cities.  We live in a nice neighborhood.  Ask anyone in New Orleans and they will probably tell you the same. 

The best sausage in town

I was at Canseco's this morning, catching up on the neighborhood gossip with the cashier.  They've been swamped during Jazz Fest.  "Well, just like every year, today's the last day," he said.  Terranova's is closed on Sundays.

I've been saying it's a seven-minute walk to the Fair Grounds from our front door.  I've been corrected.  I'm told it's a twelve-minute walk.  It only takes seven minutes when you walk like you're in Boston.

The Jazz Fest weekends are the busiest evenings on Esplanade Avenue riverside of North Broad Street.  It's a constant string of cabs heading to the French Quarter.  There is even a steady stream of pedicabs, which we rarely see any other time of year.

I've been telling people that this probably isn't a good weekend to visit the restaurants up the street.  They are right off the side exit of the Fair Grounds, so I've been assuming they are as swamped as Canseco's during the day, or the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue after dark.

All of our guests this weekend, however, have eaten in Faubourg Saint John after Jazz Fest.  The food and the service at Cafe Degas, Santa Fe, Lola's, and Nonna Mia, was as excellent as ever.

Two couples went to Lola's, a total of three times.  They enjoyed the intimate dining room and excellent paella.  Frau Schmitt likes the sangria at Santa Fe, but she prefers the sangria at Lola's.  She is usually right about these things.

Lola's on Esplanade Avenue

Something else we've learned from our guests this weekend: We live in a very nice neighborhood.

2216 Esplanade Avenue

Good guests make good company.  When you take the tour of our New Orleans bed and breakfast, we show you the dining room.  What time is breakfast?  As with most things, we are flexible.  During this weekend, we served breakfast between 8:00 and 9:30AM.  

We ask that you roll out bed and come downstairs by 9:30, but we don't wrap everything up until around noon, somedays.  The lights may go out but, when the conversation is interesting, there's no point in stopping a good thing.  Good stories make good memories.

Since 1840

I was talking to one of our guests about the cigar box museum I'm assembling in the dining room.  "Marsh Wheeling?" he said.  "I haven't smoked one of those since I was a boy.  My grandfather smoked them.  Me and my cousin filched Marsh Wheelings out of his toolbox.  We smoked them behind the hog shed after school."

Marsh Wheeling: the original genuine stogie.  Still rolled with a pigtail end.  Still made in the good old U.S. of A.  Nothing bad ever came out of Indiana.  I confirmed this with a couple from Chicago over shoe soles and scones on Sunday at 10:15AM.

When a house is full of twelve interesting people from all over the world, breakfast is the most important meal of the morning.

Early morning on Esplanade Avenue

Jazz Fest is over this year.  There are more days left before the year is out.  There are more good memories to be made in New Orleans.

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.