Madigan’s Bar

Sometimes this place is great sometimes it’s not. All depends who is bartending. I have waited and waited for a drink while bartender socialized on numerous visits. Even when she asked me what I wanted as I began to speak she turned to rejoin the conversation of her friends. This has happened more than once. Quite shocking. Also the music is as loud as a dance club and I love my music loud. But you have to yell to talk. This could be an amazing bar with the proper employees.

Only been here twice but great burger and 20 – 30 $ steaks. I like the location as well. I’ll probably be back if I get done work a little late.

Service is horrible bartenders don’t even acknowledge customers and have attitudes. As a business owner, if I owned this place I would fire half the women working there.

This place has been around for a long time and it shows. Solid service, drinks, and food. Great times with friends and all can be had here.

love this place, Adrienne and bryn

$ 2 high lifes. All the time. Great bartenders who work hard. Thanks Veronica! Can also order food from next door and they will bring it to you! Great pool table and never really overly crowded. Digital jukebox. Close to oak street and street car. Need more draught beers but overall a great place to grab a beer with your buds.

My Cheers. Big on locals, with a good smattering of out-​of-​towners, some grad school folks, and others from throughout NOLA, make for a good mix. Internet-​enabled jukebox is great, especially since it has a phone app to control the tunes. Free popcorn if you ask for it. Bartenders are all a joy – friendly, attentive, and personable.
When the kitchen is open (until 11pm daily) make sure you grab some delicious entrée or appetizer.
Beware of the cigarette smoke, unless that’s your sort of thing (I definitely don’t mind). Only gets smokey when crowded. Update: No smoking after the NOLA-​wide ban 4 months ago.

Great neighborhood bar! Love to come here on the weekends when Cooter Browns is too crowded. Not too divey + they have some pretty solid bar food. Decent specials usually $ 4 for a call shot & $ 2 for a beer. Four stars.

Thank you Bryn for helping me start my 60^th birthday off with some cold ones!
Then thanks Adriane & Bryn for joining me at the party on Oak,
Last but never least, thank you Bill for serving us some cold ones after the party!!!
Best bartenders & regulars ever at this bar! You are always made to feel like family!

Great neighborhood bar excellent, friendly bartenders & owners. Great food after 5 from GB’S next door. Always stop after work for drinks & conversation.

This is the place where uptown panhandlers go to play video poker with the money they bummed off you. How do I know? Well, just ask my strong-​ankled grandma Mafalda. She’s a bit of a battleaxe, but friendly after her 5^th shot of warm gin. Warm gin. It’s like mother’s milk. In this temple of mediocrity, you can find me at the bar with a straw in my pitcher of Abita Amber, slowly sweating off my bath salts high. When I get to the end of the pitcher, I usually spend 10 – 15 minutes in a pit of abject dispair, which is why I’ve taken to calling this place «Sadigans.» But it’s a bit of a misnomer, considering how the bartender always fills up my pitcher. At this point, I’ll step outside for a sweet, deep resin hit on my bath salts bowl, and then the whole night looks up from there. Thank you Sadigans. PS Mafalda says you need to add a Human Burger to your menu.

The death metal blasting out of the jukebox kind of turned me off. But, the place reeked of smoke, so I figured, hey… lets drink. After all, the patrons seemed to be having fun.
This was easier said than done. I ordered a Mai Tai. The bartender informed me that she does not make Mai Tais because she hates them. She also hates Rum Runners, Blue Hawaiians, and Bahama Mamas. I was not allowed to have anything that she did not like because they were old drinks.
I explained I was on a mission to try new cocktails and she said she could make me a Sex on the Beach…
I passed. I ended up with a «layered drink made with rum» When I was asked by my drinking companion how the drink tasted, I said, «like a Mai Tai» and I was reminded EMPHATICALLY that it was NOT a Mai Tai, because she does not make old drinks.
Extra points added for her super short shorts and the fact that despite the fact she was nearly a shrew, she was fast and competent. We tipped her 5 bucks and I left with a buzz. Bonus.

This place could be so much better. It has a great location, nice setting, it’s clean, good food, but the bartenders have zero personality. Almost to the point of rude. I am always disappointed when I’m in there. The bar has no character. No identity. When I go to fins or pals or wherever, I’m always greeted with a smile. Correct me if I’m wrong but a bartender should be a little friendly. I’ve been in madigans when it was dead, and the bartender sits behind the bar on her iPhone. I kept having to get her attention every time I wanted another drink. Sometimes she would just ignor me so she could finish her text or whatever she was doing. New customers came in and sat at the bar and doesn’t even look up and acknowledge them. If I ran this place id fire the hole staff. It’s really disappointing because I want to like this place, it’s stumbling distance from my house but Id rather drive across town to a bar where the bartenders know me and take care of me. Madigan’s isn’t really bad, it just has zero personality and a staff that could care less.

The Madigan’s of today is no different than the Madigan’s of the 90’s. There is something nice about a bar that can remain that consistent, but it is not without its issues.
One thing that has seemed to change is that on the night I visited the crowd seemed older than I remembered. That wasn’t a bad thing, as I am older now too.
I do wish they would go smoke free, but I actually wish all bars would go that direction.
Service was friendly and prompt. I am not too sure about their beer selection as I was on a High Life kick the night I visited, but their prices seemed reasonable.
The men’s room is smaller than most bars, so wait till no one else is inside before going to pee.
I do prefer Cooter Brown’s if I am in the Riverbend, but it was nice to visit Madigan’s for old times sake.

This is a basic bar in the Riverbend that offers a consistent experience. It never seems deserted but never seems crowded either. It has a very long bar and several tables and chairs so there never seems to be a lack of seating. They have decent drink prices and usually good service. They also have pool and a few other distractions to entertain you. The main downside is that this place can get really smokey at times.

Classic riverbend bar. Cheap drinks and a view of the Carrolton streetcar line make for excellent afternoons. More than decent food available next door at GBs. Happy hour every day from 4 – 7 provide deals on what are already pretty good drink prices. The crowd may not be for everyone, and I definitely suggest day drinking over the nighttime crowd here.

It really is just A-​Ok. I come here to play pool, obviously there’s nothing much else to it. It’s one of those places that you go to once and then you probably never come back, unless it’s just convenient :/

Ok, its not a cheapy cheap bar, but I’m fine with that. Yes, there are people smoking inside, but what bar doesn’t have that.
The drinks were well made, even though they were simple drinks. Thats not always the case. The bartender was very friendly, and was always in front of you in a timely manner when you needed a refill. We were there as a stop on my birthday tour, and when she overheard it was my birthday, she bought me a shot and took one with me.
It was a Friday night, around 11 – 12:30 and it wasnt crowded at all, which kind of surprised me.
I liked it a whole bunch and I’ll try to make my way back there.

Aside from a nice interior with dark wood paneling and a lot of really great art-​prints this place is just about as plain vanilla as it comes.
Drink specials are so-​so; as is the crowd. Someone commented on how it is the slightly older young people (who are too cool to hang out with the 18 year olds at Quills) and in my experience I would say that is a pretty apt observation.
The drink specials are decent, but nothing that really stands out.
There is pool and your standard bar games, and if you bring enough people with you it’s easy to have a good time.
Will I seek this place out? No. But it definitely isn’t shitty enough for me to refuse going there to meet with friends, avoid it on a bar-​crawl, or refuse to go there as a change of pace from some of the more usual hangouts.

I am about to embarrass myself by writing a current review of Madigan’s, a bar I swore I’d never visit after my freshman year at Loyola ended in 2000. (OMG, I’m old!)
It was a few months ago. I had no intention of ending up at Madigan’s, but Cooter Brown’s was too full for the Saints game, and there wasn’t enough time to get to anyone’s house before kickoff. Madigan’s was spittin’ distance, so off we went!
I’d like to say I was immediately hit with a blast of nostalgia upon walking in the door, but the what I was hit with was a wall of cigarette smoke! As a general rule, I don’t love smokey bars (do smokers even love smokey bars?), but this was beyond anything I’ve experienced before or since. My eyes began watering before the first quarter ended, but like I said, home was too far to drive to between plays! So I tried to tough it out.
Tears are running down my cheeks, I’m wheezing, and these people are just blowing smoke every which way. This is a bit of an aside, but if you can tell the smoke eaters aren’t working, isn’t it more polite to step outside for a few minutes to enjoy your cigarette? But I digress.
The only good thing I can say about Madigan’s in this review (aside from their potato skins, which weren’t bad) is that the television is angled in such a way that you can see it through the window from outside on the street, which is where I ended up standing for the rest of the game, in 30 degree weather. BECAUSE THEIR SMOKE EATERS DO NOT WORK.
Madigan’s, I don’t know what I ever saw in you. Oh, wait. Yes I do. It was the underage drinking.* ;-)
*Note — I am not claiming that is currently common practice, as the last time I illegally drank there was 10 years ago (There is a statute of limitations on that, right? Don’t tell my mom!)