How to spend a day in Algiers Point, New Orleans

Crossing from Canal Street

The Algiers Point–Canal Street Ferry (RTA Route 1) is walk-on, and there is nothing to book in advance. The fare is $2 and the crossing takes five minutes. Nothing else in New Orleans gives you that much for the money.

Capacity is first-come. A group boards together when the boat has room, and a large party may be split across two sailings.

Check norta.com before you set out. Service was suspended for several days in spring 2026, and the rebuild is still going on. Coming back, St Louis Cathedral and the French Quarter are the far landing, so you can give Algiers Point a half-day and still eat in the Quarter.

The levee path and the Jazz Walk of Fame

The Algiers Point Levee Path and Robert E. Nims Jazz Walk of Fame begins at the ferry landing, under the Armstrong statue. A paved path runs along the grassy levee crown, past a receding line of lampposts, each one carrying a jazz musician's plaque.

From up here you see the whole crescent of the city at once, which you cannot do from anywhere else. French Quarter spires and the CBD towers stand across the brown water, and the channel keeps working in front of you with tugs and the Steamboat Natchez.

Walk it in the last hour before sunset. The levee is public and free with nothing to restrict access, which makes it the simplest place to arrange a meeting.

Morgan Street and the courthouse

Algiers Courthouse (Morgan Street) dates from 1896, built after the 1895 fire that burned 200 homes, and it is the third-oldest courthouse still in use in Louisiana. The style is Richardsonian Romanesque: red brick and grey stone, heavy round arches, a corner tower with no clock, the whole thing set back behind palms.

It is also a working courthouse, so look at it from the pavement and take your photographs there.

The two old churches

Mount Olivet Episcopal Church (Pelican Avenue) is the oldest surviving building in the neighbourhood. The parish was founded in 1846, and this timber church replaced one lost to fire in 1866. It is Carpenter Gothic, with white board-and-batten walls, a steep shingled roof and pointed lancet windows, live oaks over the churchyard. The congregation is small. You are welcome at a service, and if you want a look inside on a weekday, email ahead.

Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church went up in 1929 in buff brick, Tudor Gothic, with a square crenellated tower. More than 75 stained-glass windows, several of them German-made, carry deep jewel colours that glow from inside. No interior in Algiers Point is more ambitious, and the parish is a full working one, with Masses daily and five on Sunday, one of those in Spanish. Come outside service times and ask at the office.

Folk art by appointment

Algiers FolkArtZone + Blues Museum is a small shotgun house crammed with Charles Gillam Sr's hand-carved painted wooden busts of Louisiana bluesmen, his bottle-cap and found-object assemblages, and a yard sculpture garden of folk figures. There is nothing else like it on the Point.

It opens by appointment only. Call or email first: the rooms are tiny, and the door stays shut to anyone who turns up on spec.

Confetti Park with young children

Confetti Park sits two blocks from the ferry, free and unfenced on the street side, with no booking. Neighbourhood families have run it since 2000. A bright sculptural metal fence by the artist Steve Kline rings a cedar-chip play surface, and picnic tables stand under cypress trees with Victorian shotgun houses behind. Puppet shows and bike races run through the year. With small children, this is what makes a half-day here work.

Coffee and breakfast

Congregation Coffee Roasters (240 Pelican Avenue) opens 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday to Monday, and stays shut Tuesday and Wednesday. It was founded in 2015, went briefly dark, and reopened under Patrick Brennan's ownership with Ralph Brennan Bakery pastries. The room is small, with tall windows, a pale wood counter and bagged single-origin coffee on the shelves; bikes lean up outside and a crowd ends up on the pavement.

Tout de Suite Cafe (Verret Street) has been the locals' brunch for twenty years. It runs Tuesday to Sunday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the kitchen stops at 12:30. The converted shotgun house has mismatched tables and a chalkboard menu, wholegrain and flaxseed plates, all-organic coffee in heavy mugs. Go early, because it closes while the rest of the city is still eating.

Lunch and dinner near the landing

Dry Dock Cafe (Delaronde Street) is the closest proper meal to the boat. It has been open since 1986, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, walk-in, $$. Gumbo and barbecue shrimp come out alongside burgers, and the service absorbs a crowd. It is the largest room on the Point, done in ship models and dock salvage, with big windows onto Delaronde Street.

The Drift Inn Diner (323 Verret Street) opened late in 2025 and is the newest favourite here. It closes Tuesdays, and otherwise runs 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with burgers and grits bowls at $13 to $15. The griddle works behind glass, homemade ice cream waits in a scoop case, and cocktails sit on the back bar. Ice cream hour is 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Barracuda Taco Stand (446 Pelican Avenue) is the second branch of the city's taco stand, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, $. You order at a walk-up window onto a covered patio of picnic tables under string lights. Fresh-pressed corn and Sonoran flour tortillas, a salsa bar, margaritas in plastic cups, and family-style trays if you are taking it away.

Bars on Patterson Drive and Delaronde Street

Old Point Bar (Patterson Drive) stands directly opposite the levee. The century-old corner barroom papers its walls in Algiers memorabilia and old photographs, pours from 16 taps, keeps a pool table and squeezes a stage into the corner. Live music plays most nights across jazz, country and rock, with a fortnightly open mic. It runs to 2 a.m., and to 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Walk-ins only, and the room fills before the band starts.

The Crown and Anchor English Pub opens at 11 a.m. daily, and you go in through a blue Doctor Who TARDIS police box to dark wood panelling, a dartboard, Guinness and cider taps, British football and Bowie memorabilia. It is reckoned the most convincing English pub in the city, and the darts and board games hold a party together. Thursday is the pub quiz, which gets busy, so come early.

Rice Vice: Part Two (143 Delaronde Street) opens Wednesday to Sunday from 4 p.m., $$$. A sake brewery runs this New Orleans outpost, and the house-made sake and shochu sit backlit on the shelves of a narrow, low-lit room with a short wooden counter and nothing shouting from the signage. Seating is a handful of stools, so reserve, and keep it to two to four people.

Where to stay

Algiers Point has no hotel. House of the Rising Sun Bed and Breakfast (Pelican Avenue) is three blocks from the ferry, an 1896 timber house with 11ft ceilings, heart-pine floors, rooms decorated around blues and jazz, and a back porch over a small backyard pool. Three bedrooms, $$$, booked direct by phone, families accepted, and the hosts know the neighbourhood's music history. For a room on the other bank, see the New Orleans hotel search.

Planning your day

Book the Blues Museum and Rice Vice before you travel, and email Mount Olivet if you want to be inside it on a weekday; everything else here takes walk-ins. Check norta.com for the ferry, and work around the closed days at Congregation, Tout de Suite and the Drift Inn. See the New Orleans guide.