Photo by Kim Ashford

Juban’s has been an unlikely inhabitant of the Acadian Perkins Shopping Plaza since 1983. Dive Bar Girl has always found it odd that a fine dining landmark is nestled into the corner of the aging strip mall. It even shares a wall with a local hardware store.

While Juban’s and its signature “Hallelujah Crab” are familiar to Baton Rouge diners, the Courtyard Bar is a hidden gem that deserves more attention than just for being a place to get a quick drink while waiting for a dinner table to open up.

The bar recreates the ambience of a hidden French Quarter courtyard, but not in a cheesy Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean way. It is subtle and tasteful, and this courtyard has air conditioning in the steamy summer months. Whenever Dive Bar Girl feels herself missing New Orleans, she puts on her patent leather Mary Janes and her grown-up jewelry and heads to Juban’s. It is one of the few establishments in Red Stick that can make a proper martini. The bartenders use the perfect amount of vermouth and shake it up until it is so cold small ice crystals dance across the top and eventually fade into the sides of the glass.

Juban’s makes the type of grown-up cocktails Elizabeth Taylor could hurl at Richard Burton while spouting lines from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? While other drinking establishments have seen their cocktail menus become littered with sweet-flavored martinis designed to be swilled by pretty amateurs wearing too much eye makeup, Juban’s proudly serves Sazaracs and Pimm’s Cups. Dive Bar Girl feels these beverages are best paired with seersucker suits, red bow ties and hot summer days.

And then there is the fireplace for those lonely winter months. Dive Bar Girl can easily envision some wayward politician romancing a potential mistress while sitting fireside, sipping honey bourbon cocktails and talking about his waning idealism and her vibrant energy and enthusiasm for life.

So stop in one night on your way home from work, or arrive a little early for your dinner reservation.

Under the cloak of anonymity, Cherry the Dive Bar Girl has haunted every speakeasy, saloon and alehouse from Red Stick to Red Square. Why does she prefer to go incognito?  Because she can be tongue and cheek, stay mysterious, and pretty much say whatever she wants. After many years, her wanderlust waned, and she decided to play house back in her home state,  Louisiana. For more of her musings, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to sign up for Cherry Baton Rouge, an independent e-newsletter.

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