The John

Cheap drinks
Friendly bartender
Toilet chairs
My only complaints are that the whole bathroom toilet theme was not strongly represented. Half of the bar followed it and the other half just looked like a regular old dive bar. This place also seems to be a locals only type of place. My girlfriend and I were so uncomfortable from all the looks and stares we were receiving that we felt like we had to leave after just one drink. I will probably never return, I did not feel safe there.

Very rundown bar. And the place was filthy. Bathrooms were also disgusting. The soap to wash your hands was in a cup on the counter. The bar tender was decent but just wasn’t super impressed with this place

Chhheeeaaapppp drinks lol. LOL yea, cheap drinks. This is my first time at this bar. I’ve heard of this place before but I have never been here.
The drinks are cheap and they are drowned in liquor. There is a pinhg pong table but other then that, it’s just drinks. The spot has limited seating but it’s a large area.

Cheap drinks! Nice open space and a great location. There is a ping pong table in the rear of the spot and limit chairs.
The bar has lots of choices and the bartender is great. The place was empty at 6pm but at 10pm the crowd came.

The John is a truly an amazing place. I lived down the block from it during hurricane Gustav and it remained open 24 hours as usual despite not having power for five days. $ 3 for a mason jar full of whiskey at any time of the day. Hard to top that.

Great local joint. Having been here in the day and night, for a 24 hour joint, the reviews should be better. Both times here, the staff have been attentive and friendly. Drinks are great. The place is huge, and I mean huge with one of the longest bar areas ever featuring a back area with a pool table and arcade machines. Toilet seats as décor, why not? The wall decorations of blues records and music postings works well together. The A.C. in this place is amazing! The only downside, in this massive space, you need to offer ‘Food’ to go with the strong drinks. Plus the bathroom needs a better setup. Great local spot in the Marigny.

Morbid curiosity is what brought me here. I had passed this place tons of times and constantly wondered what it was all about. I had definitely asked myself more than once, «Why would a bar choose to have a toilet theme?» Well, I still don’t know the answer to that question, but I finally made it here.
The place is a lot bigger than I expected and on this particular night the place was packed. Even though there were a ton of people here, the bartender was fast and friendly. There’s a large space so there were people dancing and others just sitting at the bar chatting.
This is a cool little chill spot. I don’t know if I’ll be back. I feel like my question has been answered about this place, but I’m glad that I went once.

If you need food, Verti Mart and Quartermaster delivers. It’s 3 blocks from Decatur for shopping and more food. The drinks here are dirt cheap and well worth the wait on the weekends. If you come during the day, please bring a jacket lol its freezing!

Its a really big bar and they have toilets as chairs along the wall. The drink I ordered was really cheap, but it wasn’t very good. I had vodka and it tasted like rubbing alcohol. When we went it was really empty and they only had 1 bartender working. The service was still pretty good, but the atmosphere didn’t really make us feel welcome. We left with our drinks after about 10 minutes and walked back to a little more lively bars.

So, as the name implies, there are johns to sit on when you walk into the bar. The night we went, it was fairly slow, but our group didn’t really feel welcome. The place could use a little clean up, and maybe some better music. It was a quite idea though.

The John stays cold. They pour strong. It smells like a bathroom (the stuff you use to clean it). They have ping-​pong and an arcade machine. They’ve got a jukebox and slots as well. Great spot. Great crowd.

Standard bar. Roomy. Ping pong table. Nice bartender who helped me look for my wallet that I miss placed while there. No one stole it so that was cool. CHEAP drinks. I got 4 gin and tonics for $ 16. Just off of frenchmen so a good place to go to escape for a couple drinks.

You gotta love a bar that doesn’t close.
And then it’s got a bathroom theme. I have a nice, chill, laid back time every time i visit the John and when you think about it… Shouldn’t every visit to the john be enjoyable?
My friends seem to like the golden toilets though i prefer to sit at the bar. I think my favorite thing about this place (aside from the low cost and the heavy pouring) is that they’re open when i get off work. Whenever i get off work.
In their defense, I’ve never been to a dive bar with an acceptably clean restroom. This is a thing I’ve unfortunately come to terms with as part of the dive bar experience. Is not ok, but is the way it happens.
Anywho.
They’re just far enough off the beaten path that you can’t really ask people on the street if you’re walking in the right direction. 3 different ppl directed us to bathrooms in other bars.
We managed to make it anyway.

Typical dive bar except for the whole toilet thing. Cute girls that like to use the guys’ restroom because the line for the girls’ is always crazy, which is fine. Dudes trying to sound cool in the bathroom by talking about cocaine.

I wandered into this place one evening wanting to escape the crowds on Frenchmen. It was nice and cool inside with a huge bar and friendly bartender. Best part, the drinks were stiff AND very reasonably priced. It’s a nice place to drink on the cheap and collect your thoughts.
UPDATE:
Unfortunately, and much to my dismay, the next time I went to The John, the «friendly» bartender I previously mentioned, turned out to be quite a drama queen. I don’t know– perhaps he was having personal issues and I ended up on the receiving end of his frustrations.
After standing and waiting to be served for literally 15 minutes while the two bartenders changed shifts, bartender #1 then proceeds to walk right past me to the other end of the bar and not serve me. I thought, well, maybe she didn’t see me, so I held up my hand. Nope. Walked right past me AGAIN. Apparently, this gesture was seen as offensive because bartender #1 then comes back and starts ranting about how I was being impatient. Lady, I’ve been waiting here for 15 minutes and then you just sauntered right past me TWICE and served someone else who had already been served. Then «friendly» bartender came up to me and said I was acting like a b*tch. Yeah, just like that he called a patron the «B» word. Time to go.
So, as I was leaving, the man at the door said something to me, though I can’t recall his exact words, however it was something friendly. I told him I wasn’t ever returning because the bartender had called me a b*tch. To his credit, door guy did try to remedy the situation and offered to buy me a drink, but I was too upset and was about to leave when «friendly» bartender approached and proceeded to exhibit one of the most bizarre spectacles of meanness I’ve ever encountered. Again, he called me a b*tch and said that «every time» I had been in there before I had been that way and that on a previous occasion I had been so falling down drunk he had to kick me out. Um… what? Given that I had only been there once EVER before, and had even exchanged friendly chat with this very same guy, it was obvious that not only was he lying but that he had some serious personality issues. The fact that he was so adept at pulling lies right out of his bunghole about someone he didn’t even know, made it apparent he was a well practiced liar. It was quite surreal to watch someone, well, just make sh*t up and even now, I’m puzzled as to why he did that.
This is a classic case of people working in a service industry who really have no business being there. There was no need for things to have escalated the way they did and even now, I’m amazed by the complete lack of not only service skills, but social skills of both bartenders. I’m sure I’m not the only one who this has happened to because while waiting at the bar, the young woman next to me, after seeing that I was ignored, told me that it had taken her and her friend a long time to get served as well. It wasn’t a case of the place being busy, but simply a case of substandard employees with poor work ethics, reprehensible manners and troubled personalities.

I first heard of this bar a couple of weeks before my trip to New Orleans via a post and photo on
. I saw the photos of the gold toilets in the bar area and since I was going to town anyway I thought I needed to try it.
Parking is challenging. There isn’t a lot so you need to find a place on the street. I found one right up front and went inside. The bar is very dark. Everyone was gathered around the bar and it was not too crowded. It seemed that everyone there were regulars as the bartender knew everyone and stopped to talk to each of them. I looked at the beer options and not much stood out. The bartender told me most people generally get a PBR. It’s $ 2. I asked what others they had and she pointed me to a small collection of bottles down at the other end of the bar. She said that’s what we have — some of them I can’t even pronounce! I returned to my seat and had the PBR.
I checked out the restroom and it was a bit scary. Beside the sink was a cup of pink runny liquid (see photo). I didn’t know if that was soap or if someone left their drink. I saw a large ping-​pong table in the other room, but it was too dark to take a photo. I did like the albums handing from the wall above the toilets in the bar area.
It was a descent experience. The regulars all seemed to love it and the bartender enjoyed talking to each of them. It was a bit chilly and dark in there, but that’s maybe part of the charm. I wish I would have taken a picture of myself there…

Cheap drinks! Frenchmen on a Saturday can get way lame. Escape to The John!

My husband and I have a perennial battle: he loves dive bars (Vaughn’s, BJ’s, Always Lounge) and I am a committed fancy cocktail bar fan (French 75, Bar Tonique, Sazerac). So I wasn’t super-​psyched to check out The John; he was elated when a mutual friend suggested we go. I was pleasantly surprised. It was dark, but from what I could tell, not too dirty. Had a nice friendly vibe and the huge bar made it easy to get a seat and a drink. I’ll go back next time we hit The New Movement.

After having dinner in the Marigny, I searched Unilocal for «cheap drinks,» figuring we could do a dive bar tour and get drunk fairly cheaply. The first stop was The John.
Interesting décor, cheap, cheap, cheap drinks (most premium drinks at $ 6, everything else is even less), and a friendly bartender. If it weren’t for the smoke, we might have stayed there all night. However, I eventually needed to go for a walk and breathe.
The John may have worked its way into our regular rotation for baby-​free nights of alcohol consumption.

Pros:
+Extremely cheap drinks
+Drinks served in mason jar
+Slightly off the beaten path, so not as crowded as other places on Frenchmen
+Close to The New Movement, if you’re waiting for a comedy show like I was the other night
+Ping pong table
+Large clean bathrooms
+Air conditioning
+Bartender just might give you credits for the jukebox
+Toilets for seats at one of the tables
+Awesome t-​shirt design; I need one ASAP once they reorder some smaller sizes!
+Awesome friendly bartender whose «singles» are any other bar’s «doubles» — you get drunk for cheaper1
Cons:
+Meg’s comment disturbs me, but I myself have experienced no cons