7 Things to Do in the French Quarter at Night That Aren’t Bourbon Street
Bourbon Street at night is something everyone should see at least once.
The neon. The music. The balconies. The crowds. The drinks. The occasional questionable life decision unfolding directly in front of you.
It’s Bourbon Street.
But if your entire nighttime experience in New Orleans begins and ends there, you’re missing most of what makes the French Quarter interesting.
After the sun goes down, some of the oldest streets in New Orleans take on an entirely different personality. Jackson Square empties out. St. Louis Cathedral lights up against the night sky. Pirates Alley grows quieter. The shops along Royal Street close their doors, and suddenly you’re paying attention to buildings you walked past all afternoon.
And underneath all of it is more than 300 years of New Orleans history.
So if you’re looking for things to do in the French Quarter at night besides Bourbon Street, here are seven of our favorites.
1. See Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral After Dark
Jackson Square is one of the busiest places in the French Quarter during the day.
Artists hang their work along the iron fence. Street performers draw crowds. Carriages roll past. Visitors move between the Cabildo, Presbytère and St. Louis Cathedral.
At night, the experience changes.
The crowds thin, the temperature drops and the illuminated façade of St. Louis Cathedral becomes one of the most impressive nighttime sights in New Orleans.
This is also a good place to stop thinking like a tourist for a minute.
Look around.
This was the center of colonial New Orleans. The square was originally known as the Place d’Armes and served as the public heart of the city during the French and Spanish colonial periods.
The buildings surrounding you aren’t reproductions built to look old.
You’re standing in the historic center of New Orleans.
And nighttime is one of the best times to appreciate it.
2. Walk Through Pirates Alley at Night
Just beside St. Louis Cathedral is one of our favorite little streets in New Orleans.
For obvious reasons.
During the day, it’s a busy passage connecting Jackson Square with Royal Street. At night, especially once the crowds disappear, it feels completely different.
Old buildings rise on either side. St. Louis Cathedral towers above one end of the alley. Lamps illuminate portions of the street while leaving others in shadow.
And then there’s the name.
Pirates Alley has accumulated plenty of stories connecting it with Jean Lafitte and the pirates and smugglers who operated around New Orleans during the early 1800s. Separating history from legend is part of the fun.
What we do know is that Lafitte and his Baratarians were very real, their smuggling operation was enormous, and New Orleans was an important market for their illegally imported goods.
Whether Lafitte himself spent his evenings hanging around this particular alley is another question.
We prefer the real history to the legend anyway.
If you want to know why this entire neighborhood seems to change once the sun goes down, read our guide to New Orleans at Night: Why the French Quarter Feels Different After Dark.
3. Take a Pirate History Tour at 7 PM
If you’re going to wander through the French Quarter after dark, you might as well know what happened on these streets.
Our Pirate History Tour departs at 7 PM and explores the real history of pirates, privateers and smugglers in New Orleans.
You’ll hear about Jean Lafitte and the Baratarians, their massive smuggling operation south of the city, their complicated relationship with New Orleans and their role in the Battle of New Orleans.
And we do it while walking through the neighborhood where this history happened.
No buried treasure.
No parrots.
No pretending everyone with a boat and a sword was a pirate.
The actual story is much better.
Friday and Saturday Nights Get a Little Wilder
On Friday and Saturday nights, you can trade the regular history tour for our Pirate Pub Crawl.
It’s part French Quarter history, part pub crawl and considerably less concerned with respectable behavior.
Over the course of the evening, you’ll stop for drinks while hearing stories of pirates, duels, torture, brutality and some of the darker chapters of New Orleans history.
New Orleans has never been particularly good at behaving itself.
Neither are we.
4. Have a Drink Somewhere With a Good Pirate Story
You’re in New Orleans.
At some point, having a drink is probably going to enter the conversation.
If you’re exploring the French Quarter at night, there are two places that fit particularly well with a pirate-themed evening.
Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop
At the corner of Bourbon and St. Philip Streets sits one of the most recognizable historic bars in New Orleans.
Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop occupies an old Creole cottage and has long been associated with stories about Jean and Pierre Lafitte.
Did the Lafitte brothers actually use the building as part of their smuggling operation?
That’s where history and New Orleans legend begin bumping into each other.
But the building itself is historic, the Lafitte stories have become part of French Quarter folklore, and the dark interior makes it a particularly atmospheric place for a drink at night.
Pirates Alley Café
For something much closer to home, there’s Pirates Alley Café, tucked directly into Pirates Alley beside St. Louis Cathedral.
Grab a drink and sit outside in one of the most unusual little corners of the French Quarter.
At night, with the Cathedral nearby and the old buildings surrounding you, it’s difficult to find a setting that feels much more New Orleans.
If you’re going to have a drink in the French Quarter, you might as well pick somewhere with a good story.
5. Walk Along the Mississippi River at Night
From Jackson Square, you’re only a few minutes from the Mississippi River.
Walk across Decatur Street and head toward the riverfront.
Today you’ll see ships moving along the Mississippi, the Crescent City Connection glowing in the distance and lights stretching along the river.
Two hundred years ago, the view would have been very different.
But the river would have been just as important.
New Orleans became one of America’s great cities because of its location on the Mississippi. Ships, cargo, sailors, merchants and travelers from around the world poured through the port.
And so did smugglers.
The world of Jean Lafitte and the Baratarians only makes sense when you understand New Orleans as a port city.
They weren’t pirates operating in some distant tropical world disconnected from New Orleans.
They were part of the commercial world surrounding the city.
Standing along the Mississippi at night makes that history considerably easier to imagine.
6. Wander Royal and Chartres Streets After the Shops Close
Royal Street gets plenty of attention during the day.
Antique stores, galleries, musicians, shops and restaurants keep it busy.
Then evening arrives.
The shops begin closing, the crowds shrink and Royal becomes a completely different street.
That’s when you start noticing the architecture.
Look up.
Iron balconies and galleries stretch overhead. Shutters cover tall windows. Narrow passageways disappear between buildings. Every few blocks, an open doorway gives you a brief glimpse into a courtyard hidden behind the street façade.
Then walk over to Chartres Street and keep exploring.
Some of the best nighttime experiences in the French Quarter aren’t attractions at all.
They’re just streets.
Put the phone away for ten minutes and wander.
You’ll be surprised what you notice.
7. Discover the Darker Side of French Quarter History
Ghosts get most of the attention in New Orleans during October.
Fair enough.
But the French Quarter doesn’t need supernatural stories to have a dark past.
There were public executions.
There were duels.
There were brothels and gambling houses.
There were epidemics, fires, violent crimes, political schemes and people settling disagreements in ways that would be strongly discouraged today.
New Orleans has spent more than three centuries accumulating stories.
Some are funny.
Some are disturbing.
Some are almost impossible to believe.
And some make you wonder how anybody survived long enough for us to have a city at all.
If that’s your kind of history, read Executions, Duels, Brothels & Debauchery: The Dark Side of New Orleans History.
October just happens to be an especially appropriate time for it.
There’s More to the French Quarter Than Bourbon Street
Don’t misunderstand us.
Go to Bourbon Street.
Walk down it. Have a drink. Listen to some music. Watch the madness. Take the obligatory photograph proving you survived.
It’s part of New Orleans.
But then keep walking.
Turn onto St. Peter.
Walk through Jackson Square.
Step into Pirates Alley.
Explore Royal and Chartres.
Walk down to the Mississippi.
Look up at the buildings.
And remember that underneath the bars, restaurants, hotels and souvenir shops is one of the oldest neighborhoods in America.
That’s the French Quarter we love.
Looking for Something Different to Do in the French Quarter at Night?
Come explore it with us.
Pirates of the Quarter offers our Pirate History Tour at 7 PM, where we explore the real stories of Jean Lafitte, the Baratarians, smuggling, privateering and the Battle of New Orleans while walking through the historic French Quarter.
And on Friday and Saturday nights, join us for the Pirate Pub Crawl for drinks and stories of pirates, duels, torture, brutality and the darker side of New Orleans history.
Because there’s a lot more to New Orleans after dark than Bourbon Street.
Book your Pirate History Tour or Pirate Pub Crawl and come discover the stories behind the streets.