CBD

New Orleans' Central Business District sits just upriver from the French Quarter, a historically commercial and warehouse district that's grown into a dense mix of hotels, office towers, the Caesars Superdome and Smoothie King Center, and - threaded through all of it - one of the city's bigger concentrations of bars outside the Quarter itself. BarFinder lists 298 venues here, led by classic bars and a sizable cocktail bar scene, with sports bars and Irish-style pubs like Ryan's Irish Pub picking up game-day and convention crowds from the nearby arenas. The CBD's bar scene tends to run a little more buttoned-up than the French Quarter's - hotel lobby bars, business-district happy hours, spots like The Chart Room and NOLA Taphouse - while still being an easy walk from the Quarter's louder nightlife when the night calls for it. It's less a single destination strip than a practical, well-covered base for a night out downtown.