This is just some old-school shade, of course. I’m at The Country Club—New Orleans’ famed gay bar, restaurant, and pool—trying to go cocktail-for-cocktail with people who clearly have better day-drinking game than I do.
Well, it was a gay bar. Now it’s an “everybody place,” as I’m repeatedly told.
Housed in an Italianate mansion that dates back to 1884 in the quiet but rapidly gentrifying Bywater neighborhood, The Country Club was founded in 1977 and catered exclusively to New Orleans’ vibrant gay community. Since then, ownership has changed hands several times, and the original footprint of the space has grown to incorporate two adjacent properties.