Black Penny
Close to a hundred cans of beer sit racked above the bar, and the bartenders will make you a cocktail if you ask, which they will not mention.2
Why go
Ed Diaz, who runs Bar Tonique, opened it with Bert West off the bar at Erin Rose.2 The staff stays. Konrad Kantor, writing in 2019, noted that the list of bar alumni was an incredibly short one
after four years.2 It sits on the French Quarter's lakeside outskirts, on a Rampart Street that Ed Diaz's own Bar Tonique turned around first and Robert LeBlanc's Meauxbar pushed further.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: a can off the wall, then ask what else they can make. Kantor's point is that the bartenders have
concocted thousands of cocktails in some of the city's most reputable craft joints
and never bring it up.2 - Order: a St-Germain cocktail if Lucy is working. Kantor named her the brand's ambassador for the city in 2019, and named Cynthia and Giovanni alongside her behind that bar.2
- Avoid: planning around hours. The bar publishes no website and the city's own listing carries none.1
What locals & experts say
- Konrad Kantor, French Quarter Journal, 24 August 2019:
Enter 700 North Rampart Street and you will find close to 100 cans of beer displayed above a bar operated by some of the city's friendliest and quickest bartenders.
2 - Whose line that is. Kantor is a New Orleans bar operator, named by 50 Best as a co-founder of Manolito, so read the column as one publican on another rather than as a critic at arm's length.3
Good to know
- Booking: walk in.
- Website: none that works. blackpennynola.com is a parked domain, which says nothing about the bar.
- Hours: nobody publishes them, the city's own listing included, so call ahead if you are making a trip of it.1
- Hygiene: not established. New Orleans publishes no inspection register this project reads.
Verdict
could-visit — The one substantial piece written about this bar is a 2019 guest column by another bar owner, and I am not going to treat one publican's word on another as independent. What it does establish is checkable: close to a hundred cans racked above the bar, Ed Diaz of Bar Tonique and Bert West of Erin Rose behind it, and a staff who came off craft cocktail bars and will make you one if you ask. The city's own listing puts it trading today, and nothing newer than 2019 says anything about the drinks, so the rung reflects thin and aging evidence rather than a judgment about them.