You might not be able to tell by looking at me, but I'm a country girl at heart. My daddy played guitar in a honky tonk country band during my formative years and I grew up in East Texas beer joints. So you can imagine my sense of deja vu upon stepping through the door of Brothers III at 2am on a Thursday night....
Long and narrow, smoky and dark, and what's this? Charley Rich and George Jones (2 albums!) and Willie Nelson and David Allan Coe on the juke box! The friendly gray-headed bartender/doorman heard my excitement about the selections and called up "Behind Closed Doors" before I even had a beer in hand.
Speaking of beer, how about $1.50-2.00 anything? Okay, maybe not anything. When I asked (during our second visit, this time Sunday evening) whether he had any of that delicious seasonal Abita Strawberry, the answer was, "No, ma'am!" Alrighty then, an iced cold Miller Lite it is.
My date kept ordering Dewar's & water on the rocks, and each drink got successively darker. Needless to say, it was my turn to drive home that night.
Duck Dynasty and sports on the TVs behind the bar. Interesting characters loitering outside and razzing customers as they pass through the doorway. Three generous video poker machines, on one of which I turned $10 into $40.50 in an hour with Deuces Wild - woo-hoo, drinks on me! Pool tables and another even more ancient juke box spinning classic 45's in the way back.
Forget communicating with the outside world once you enter. Â The mobile phone & data service is severely impaired, so rabid texters, Tweeters, and checker-inners, you will just have to go outside to do it.
A must on my rotation for all future NOLA visits. 5 stars.
*The* dive bar most preferred by Elite yelpers, Brothers III lives up to all expectations.
+low ceilings
+loads of real characters gracing the long bar
+no BS
+no leering
+no hipsters (a true dive has no hipsters, sorry. That's just the rule).
+at least one dude present at all times (I used to live right by here so I know!) with a full head of grey hair (another rule for a true dive)
+cheap
+never closes
I was here until around 5 am. What a place to rise and shine!
Oh, Brothers Three. You're among my favorite bars in the city--hell, the world. If only we were right for one another. You see, when I'm with you, lost in the moment, it seems like we really could be happy growing old together, whiling away our days, sharing our lives. It sounds magical, but you know as well as I do that things just aren't meant to be that way. Don't get me wrong, you're wonderful, and we;ve shared some truly special moments. But the world stands between us. There's my job, for example. And my human girlfriend. You've seen how angry she gets when we spend too much time together. And then there's my mother, always insisting that she raised me better. No, it isn't fair. Please understand.
Many a morning you've filled my mind with bittersweet memories of the night before. How I cherish those moments. But sobriety inevitably comes (unlike you, I am sober more hours than not). Calm down, I'm not criticizing you, we're just different in that respect. Anyway, while my heart yearns for you in the morning, the unrelenting pounding in my head come mid-morning makes it all too clear that we're just not right for one another. Yes, hangovers pass, and yes, I love spending time with you. We just need space. Lots of it. Everyone needs time away from one another.
Rest assured, distance does in fact make my heart grow fonder for your destructive embrace.
No, you're not perfect. That's why I love you. You smoke too much, you have broken down, drunk friends, gravity is rapidly taking its toll on your decrepit body, and you have all manner of bodily infestations (ohhhh kay, this personification bit is getting out of hand).
You also have an all-country jukebox, some of the best bartenders around, are generous with your booze, and are always up for whatever the night brings.
More importantly, you never judge me.
For people coming from out of town like us, and not so much into the WHOOOO bourbon street scene, this place was a perfect find!
Cozy, friendly vibe, bartender gave us free "tester" shots and I loved talking hockey with him. Â Every drink we got cost about half what I was expecting to pay. Â Pool. Â What more could you want? Â Felt like hanging out in my uncles place.
One thing, for non-smokers it may be a little overwhelming... but something we realized quickly about nawlins. Â Definitely my kind of dive, we stopped in here 3 times during our short week here.
Review number two hundo goes to Brothers III. The great King John introduced me to this great dive bar the night after the Saints and Sinners Elite Event and I am happy to say that I have been back several times since. This is a great dive bar to hangout in at any time of night, but I find it the best in the early hours of the morning, that time where you know you should be headed for home, but you are just not willing to quit a great night quite yet. There are no frills to this bar. A friend of mine put it rather well when she called it a "reality bar". Sometimes you don't want everything to be sunshine and roses; sometimes you need a dose of smoky, divey, reality. Low ceilings, cheap drinks (cash only), country music, dusty, realness served up all night and into the morning. Thank God for Brothers III.
Review Source:This is a pretty good bar for daytime drinking, although, most of the bartenders are older than a kick-start dildo, so when you have to pull them away from matlock to get you a beer, it kind of makes you feel bad for em. Â The only reason they got four stars instead of five is cause I'm pretty sure they cut their old crow with mouth wash.
Review Source:The is one of the top Dive Bars in the city...Good bartenders, cheap drinks, red heat lamps beaming rays of warmth on what has to be the lowest ceiling of any bar in the city. Its great! Dont eat the food, its terrible. little peices of hotdogs cut up in the jambalaya, or kraft singles with a slice of ham on white bread. I havent seen food out in the last 10 times Ive gone.
The have two jukeboxes that primarily play country music, so if your looking for your Johnny Cash fixture this is it. Its open 24 hours a day, and gets a ride range of characters.
Theres a pool table in the back as well.
I'm throwing down a 5-er on this place cause when I walked in it was exactly the way I envisioned it in my mind....long, low ceiling'ed and narrow....Now I stand between 6'1" & 6'6" depending on which convenience store I'm leaving and I felt like my head was gonna brush the ceiling....straight up dive and it was Nirvana!
Drinks are cheap ($3 Scotch & Waters) and strong and Jim bebind the bar was friendly and on his game....PLUS the jukebox played both kinds of music....Country & Western!! Lotta country gold from Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Charlie Rich, George Jones etc....
I LOVE this place and I will be back!!
The first time I ever went to this neighborhood dive, the bartender told me a long involved story about his lost love who only had one arm and mean mama. C'mon how are you EVER gonna top that?
The bartenders aren't quite as colorful in my experience in our post-K landscape but the bar remains the same. Cheap drinks, random person passed out on the bar, a cross section of humanity wandering in and out. Â Good times.
Being a fan of dive bars way before it was cool, I knew I had to try Brothers III. But here's the kicker: I hate cigarette smoke. I detest it. With a passion. I have asthma and so it's more than a minor annoyance. This makes it difficult for me to enjoy dive bars and since so many of the reviews here talk about how smokey it is I've resisted going even though it's just down the street from me.
I knew John L. H. loved the place and he and Jen L. convinced me to stop by after a recent Yelp event. The event was on a Tuesday night and it wasn't too late, so Brothers III wasn't crowded and therefore not very smokey!
But it's your typical dive bar - lots of wood, low ceilings, pool table, jukebox, old TV in the corner. The bartender was nice enough to accommodate me when I asked for a frou frou White Russian and he had to find some milk.
It's a great place just to chill and drink and drown your sorrows, if you have any. Eat before you go because they don't serve food. I liked it a lot and I can see myself returning during non-peak hours.
Giving this one a "divey five". Â A dive five.
What it has:
Miller High Life for $2 served to you out of an ice chest... just like your grandpa used to give you.
Low ceilings
A pretty cool jukebox
A pool table
A diverse cast of characters
Bright lighting
What it doesn't have:
A dance floor
A tolerance for foolishness
Uppity beer like Stella Artois
Big screen tvs: Are you here for drinking or are you here for tv watching?
Credit card machines
A "close" time
This place is like an atomic bomb bunker filled with hazy smoke and they usually keep plenty of provisions on hand just in case. Â If it is "possible" I usually get cheaper beer here than at Ms. Mae's (and I used to think that was impossible). Â This place NEVER closes and I think they have an ongoing pissing match with Ms. Mae's to see who can serve the cheapest booze and attract the most dive of dive bar crowds. Â This place has a much more intimate and comfortable feel to it than Ms. Mae's and the bartenders can come off a bit gruff but they like to joke around and have fun with the customers. Â They seem to cater more to the country music crowd than most other dive bars in NOLA Â They also do some nice free holiday meals for their patrons that happen to be drinking here during those times. Â I had no idea they did this until 8am one Thanksgiving morning (ok yeah I was having a really long night/morning out) when the bartender was kind enough to invite me to their meal. Â They have some pool tables and I think I have some hazy recollections of darts being played but I don't ever venture that far back into the bunker as I like to keep my eyes on the daylight so I can find my way home again otherwise I'm afraid I might become a bunker zombie and never leave. Â This place is really like a 3.5 star place to me and would be a 4 except there never seem to be more than 10 people in it... of course maybe that is because I never find myself here before 8am.
Review Source:Brothers Three is one hell of a dive bar.
Located on Magazine, this bar is almost the perfect dive. The ceilings are so low I nearly had to duck. The ice came from an ice chest. The High Life was ice cold and cheap. I could go on and on.
I liked this bar so much that I went here two separate times on the same night.
After a great show at the Howlin Wolf, a friend recommended this bar. I had never been and was very leery. A dive bar on Magazine? Who knew?
As we entered I knew I would love it. Several "professional drunks" lined the bar and we took our seats between them. The bartender was very friendly and happy to hear it was my first time. High Life was only two bucks and why drink anything else here? The country music was playing and at one point I thought the two bartenders may fight. This would have been awesome, especially since Achey-breaky heart by Billy Ray Cyrus was playing, but alas, no fisticuffs erupted.
I really like this bar. I can't wait to go back.
Note: I saw a professional drunk buy a six pack to go. Could this bar get any better?
Darrin said it: a dive where you can get away from Magazine Street without leaving it. You can see drunks hiding from the sun when their door's open during the day, but it's awesome at night. They still serve Dixie bottles for $2. The three TVs distract me (usually Animal Planet, Fox sitcoms, and FX), and the smoke makes me allergic, but I'll take playing pool and listening to bartender-curated honky tonk or Sam Cooke on the back jukebox to most Magazine establishments any day.
Review Source:My home away from home for most of my formative college years.
A bar that is a total dive by any interpretation of the word, this place has great prices, and a selection of interesting regulars who always show up. Pool, gambling machines, and an assortment of arcade games from 1992 all await you inside. No live music, but a jukebox offers you the greatest selection of country music from the 70's and 80's. There is an assortmant of food behind that counter that has likely been there since the place opened that I have yet to try - including pizza and pickled eggs. Good luck.
Smokey and dirty, I don't reccommend coming here on a first date or if you are trying to impress a client, but if you are looking to relax and have a few drinks with some interesting characters, or just get absolutely plastered for cheap, this is the place to be.
Try the Snake Bites.
Amongst New Orleans' collection of excellent dive-bars, Brothers Three seems to be the most underappreciated. Â It must be its close proximity to Ms. Mae's, who cast a pretty big shadow in the neighborhood. Â
I love it because you can get the hell away from everybody right on Magazine Street. Â I've been in there on the weekends when it's relatively crowded, but most of the time there's just a few old dudes drinking Miller High Life and listening to Waylon Jennings.
Three things I remember and love:
1. Â The jukebox. Â Lots of original country music.
2. Â Their ice. Â They obviously don't have an ice well behind the bar because they scoop it out of red igloo cooler that sits right on top of the bar.
3. Â While seated at the bar, I can reach up and palm the ceiling. Â I don't know why I find this so awesome.
Go here to get away from it all. Â For me that's the best thing that can be said for a dive bar.
So, recently one evening while leaving a show at Tipitina's my neighbor and I decided to see what exactly Brothers Three was all about. Â The bright and well-lit enameled yellow exterior contrasted with the red bulb lit interior instantly sets the tone against the numeric scrawled bottles behind the bar. Â The ground floor (raised basement?) bar area extends back to pool and who knows? Â We sat at the bar near the entrance. Â He ordered an Early Times, I an Abita. Â And we studied. Â It is in fact a mostly male clientele here, and a median age of 65 likely. Â There was a mix of 20 somethings next to us, 2 girls and guy, but they were the exception.
Our bartender was friendly, his "barback" a stringy haired gaunt man with a limp, who sat near us on the patron side of the bar periodically got up and refilled the ice in the igloo rolltop cooler that was meticulously placed in the center of the bar atop a plug in cooler. Â Evidently there was no ice maker nearby.
We witnessed a shift change. Â The bar is open 24 hours, and our bartender was knocking off. Â The bartender coming on, it was his first shift, so he was freshfaced and excited. Â From what we could tell there were 3 cash registers, one in use; the other 2 had bartowels carefully draped over them as if they were awaiting burial or at the tonsorial. Â
Last 2 things I distinctly recall: the jukebox played what sounded like a '30s recording of "High Cotton" (something like "oh there'll be hi-i-i-i-igh cotton"), and I swear at the end of bar closest to the door sat the old man (Frank?) from the Cottman commercials.
And that was it. Â We departed after our round, many more patrons were shuffling in.
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