The Carousel Bar at Hotel Monteleone has been turning since 1949, one full lap every 15 minutes, and there is usually a wait for a stool. The cocktail bar sits off the hotel lobby at 214 Royal Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, in the same hotel where Walter Bergeron created the Vieux Carré in 1938, and Food & Wine put it at No. 3 on its 2026 list of U.S. hotel bars.
Antonio Monteleone, a cobbler from Sicily, bought the hotel at Iberville and Royal in 1886, and his family still owns it, along with a row of Literary Suites named for writers who frequented the hotel (Capote, Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Faulkner and Eudora Welty). The Carousel Bar itself is a ring of 25 stools that one motor pushes around on 2,000 rollers under the floor, while the bar in the middle stays put with the bottles and the bartenders, who have no gap to walk through and climb over the bar to get in and out. The canopy overhead dates from a 1992 redesign, with eight jester faces carved around the outside, eight cherubs on the center post and mirrors and bulbs in between. The Carousel Bar is open 13 hours a day... that's 52 laps.
Seventy-Seven Years of Going in Circles
Around the carousel is a bigger lounge with booths, couches, armchairs and tables, and since the 25 stools fill quickly, that is where most people end up. A band plays in the lounge seven nights a week, and the November schedule has The Iguanas on Sundays from 7 to 10pm, the Royal Caravan Brass Band at 12:30 on Friday afternoons and three sets on Saturdays starting at 2pm. The music carries to the carousel, so plan on leaning in to talk at the bar. The ceiling has fiber-optic stars, and every so often one of them shoots across the room.
Marvin Allen has worked the Carousel Bar since 2002, wrote a cocktail book called Magic in a Shaker and still has a drink of his own on the menu. Most of the people on the stools are tourists and hotel guests, plus the occasional wedding party.
The Vieux Carré and the Rest of the Carousel Bar Menu
Bergeron named the Vieux Carré for the French Quarter (it means "old square") eleven years before the bar started turning, and the menu still credits him by name: Sazerac Rye Whiskey, Pierre Ferrand 1840 Cognac, Sweet Vermouth, Benedictine, Angostura and Peychaud's Bitters. It's $21, all spirits and no juice, with rye and cognac splitting the base and the Benedictine doing the sweetening, and it's the drink most people here order, so order it first.
After that, the Fleur de Lis ($18) is Hendrick's Gin, St. Germaine Liquor, Ginger Ale, Lemon Juice and Cucumber, and the French 007 ($18), Allen's drink, is Mathilde Poire pear liqueur and Pama pomegranate liqueur topped with sparkling wine. Traditionalists will want the Carousel Old Fashioned ($20), made with Easy Rider Bourbon, Angostura bitters, simple syrup, dark cherries and an orange twist. Cocktails run $16 to $21, and there are six alcohol-free drinks, among them the French 504 ($16), with peach purée, lemon juice and FRE non-alcoholic sparkling wine, and an N/A Espresso Martini ($16) built on N/A Ritual Rum and cold brew. The splurge is an ounce of Louis XIII for $275 (a quarter ounce is $105, for those who only need to say they had it).
Bar bites run until 9pm. The French Market Style Beignets ($12) come with praline sauce, the Deviled Eggs ($15) come with pancetta, BBQ pulled pork and caviar, and the White Truffle Fries are $17. For a full dinner, the hotel's Criollo restaurant is next door.
How to Get a Seat at the Carousel Bar in New Orleans
The hotel says the Carousel Bar takes no reservations, so the 25 stools are first come, first served, and a line forms at the door before the 11am opening. Arrive at 11 or try after 11pm, and if you end up at a lounge table, ask the bartender, since they can sometimes help find you a stool when it's quiet. The bar is cashless, adds a $0.75 fee to every check and 15% to any check left unsigned, won't split a tab more than three ways, and is 21 and over after 6pm, though there's no dress code. Guests in the hotel's Iberville Tower can book the Carousel Bar Experience, an hour with Allen from 10 to 11am before the doors open, for $100 including one cocktail and a guaranteed stool, capped at 24 people. The motor is old and occasionally stops, so if the turning is the point, ask whether it's running before you settle in. For two more hotel bars built around the room itself, see Bemelmans Bar in New York and the Tonga Room in San Francisco.
The hotel has 570 rooms and the carousel has 25 seats, so the math is not on your side.
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