Dry Dock Café — Restaurant in New Orleans

My parents - who live in the area - brought me and my family and friends here the day after Mardi Gras because they said it had great food. 3 of our party ordered Jambalaya and it came to the table cold. My mom asked the manager? Owner? The guy behind the bar? His name is Mike. To get our waitress because our food was cold. The manager told her “calm down, honey.” She’s 67 and he is much younger than her. The manager followed her and proceeded to scold her for talking disrespectfully to HIM. My mother is wasn’t looking at him and couldn’t even hear him. But my brother, sitting right next to him, did. My brother told him not to talk to his mother that way. And to step away from her. Then Mike started in on my brother and kicked him out of the restaurant. At no time was ANYONE rude or disrespectful. No one other than Mike ever even raised their voices. I then attempted to talk to Mike because everyone - including two children - was trying to eat and he kicked one of our party out for what I have no idea. I wish we had a video of this because it was so outrageous. I explained to him that calling any woman, let alone an older woman, was disrespectful. I have no idea what else he said to her but In the year 2019 you don’t call a customer honey unless you’re married to her or she’s your daughter. Then he told me he was from Philly and he doesn’t let anyone tell him how to talk to anyone. And he wasn’t going to let any woman tell him he was intentionally disrespecting someone. I told him he was now being rude to me for no reason and at this point, he was yelling at me and aggressively chopping his arm at me. There was a bar full of witnesses. In short, if someone had acted like that on the street, I would call the police. He was rude, threatening, and disrespectful to 2 women, both of whom were older than him and much smaller than him. He was a jerk. Based on his behavior, I think he might have been drunk. I’ve never seen anyone who wasn’t drunk or mentally ill be that belligerent. And I’m a lawyer! I’ve seen a lot of belligerent people. Setting aside the cold food, this place has lost 2 loyal customers and Mike scared the hell out of my kids and absolutely appalled my entire family. He made a 67 year old woman cry. Bravo. Also, the jambalaya was bland. Mine is better. And so...

On the banks of the Mississippi, in Algiers Point, there's a place called the Dry Dock Cafe.

It’s old New Orleans, sitting right there, greeting those off the ferry with the smell of seafood, the kind that speaks to your bones.

It’s more than a cafe. It’s a piece of the city's heart, tucked in the second-oldest ward.

You walk in, and it’s like stepping through time. The walls, covered in things from the sea and bits of the past, set a scene.

But it's the food that grabs you.

Gumbo, thick with what the river offers; po' boys, spilling over with taste; burgers that fill you up and stick with you.

The drinks, too, the kind locals nod at, rounding off each bite just right.

But Dry Dock, it's been there since 1901. It's not just about what's on the plate.

It’s the stories, the ones that weave into the fabric of this place.

Every person who walks through the door, they're stepping into a story that's been told since before their grandfolks were born.

It turns visitors into folks who keep coming back.

I walked into the restaurant on a quiet Wednesday afternoon. It had just opened. At first, the room was empty, silent except for the sound of my own footsteps. Then people began to fill it, quick and without ceremony. They talked as if they'd fought wars together, their voices warm and familiar.

The bartender smiled as he took my order. Soon, a bowl of Seafood Gumbo came, steaming. The scent of it was honest and promising. It was filled with shrimp and sausage bound together by a roux dark as the river mud and just as deep. Each bite was like a Faulkner Noval, simple and profoundly crafted. I ate slowly, the gumbo was good. It filled me. I was already planning to come back as I scooped the last of it from the bowl.

At first taste, the bread pudding brings you back to an old kitchen, back at your parent’s house when you were small. The dish is a marvel of indulgence, rich beyond the ordinary bounds. Its base, a dense custard, soft and full of a deep sweetness that fills your mouth at every bite.

In the rush of life, the Dry Dock stands as a reminder. There’s joy, and there's community, right there at a table in...

This place doesn't want your business. My family and I sat outside the restaurant today and studied the menu. When we had decided what we wanted to order my son-in-law and I went inside to place our orders. I was ordering for my husband, my mom, and me. My son-in-law was ordering for himself, my daughter, and their three sons. Because we had been sitting outside I forgot to wear my mask inside. The woman taking my son-in-law's order looked around him and rudely told me to put on my mask. I did put it on, because I honestly had forgotten to put it on and I respect the mask rules of businesses. After my son-in-law placed his order and the woman turned her attention to me I told her that before I ordered I wanted her to know that she needn't have been so rude to me when she reminded me to put on my mask. She told me she talks that way to everyone whom she tells to put on masks. I replied to her that she needs to be more polite to everyone, then, when she reminds them. I tried to explain that people honestly forget and polite reminders is all people need, but she wouldn't let me finish. She told me she wasn't going to take my order and she had a right to refuse service, then she turned her back to me and walked into the next room. I went back outside and since our grandsons needed lunch my husband decided to go in and order. She refused to take his order. So my son-in-law went inside to cancel his order. The woman was glad to cancel it, and she told him that I had screamed and yelled at her. He's known me for quite a while and knew that the woman was fabricating a story; I don't yell and scream at anyone. But this entire episode made us realize that the people who run this restaurant really don't care about service or their customers. We went to a different restaurant nearby and had a nice lunch. We are visiting from San Antonio. I don't know how the food at this place is; the woman taking orders didn't care if we found out and after this incident we didn't care...