Bar Tonique: The Hole in the Wall to Best All Holes

Midway down Rampart Street, a few blocks between St Peter and St Phillips Street, roughly on the northwest border of the French Quarter, a small bar peeks out of a row of entresol houses and townhomes, facing Louis Armstrong Park and the lighted arch that marks its entrance. There are two, maybe three small wire tables surrounded by chairs, and the glass doorway has only a small awning over it. The only indication of business is a swaying wooden sign labelled “Bar Tonique.” Right off the bat the name seems kind of incongruent with the actual building, somehow. The first time I saw it, I was drawn to it partially for this inconsistency. The location seems older, the yellowish paint faded in places. The inside is dark, like that of most bars, and the little seating space there is surrounds a square bar that stands against the left wall. Walking in I am instantly conscious of the space. It’s like all that needs to be seen is seen immediately. There’s really only space for two bartenders to maneuver, but with the amount of seating this doesn’t seem to pose much of an issue. The lighting is not bright, but it’s also warm, yellow, and soft. There are a few barstools, but most of the seating is made up of red-cushioned booths tucked around. Interestingly enough, though, I usually opt to sit outside, at one of those two aforementioned dinky looking black wire tables. The kind that always have one uneven leg, and can never stand quite straight for very long. The view of the park is expansive and lovely, certainly, but the appeal of the outdoor area is something more than that, and it’s connected to the first time I accidentally encountered Bar Tonique. 

The expansive Bar Tonique menu, updated consistently over the bar’s lifespan.

A couple of my friends had visited from out of town, and after strolling a bit aimlessly around the French Quarter, we eventually began to wander out of the nucleus in search of an eventual way home. Reaching Louis Armstrong Park, the bar is almost hidden in the surrounding glare. Having essentially stumbled upon Bar Tonique, we decided to cap off the evening with a final beverage or two in the fading light. The cocktail menu was like a book — and no pamphlet either, like something Dostoyevsky discarded because he thought it was too long. Each drink also listed its contents and the year it was first drunk, which felt thoughtful. This kind of attention to detail was one of the first things to catch my eye. It was almost as if, even though we hadn’t been consciously looking for this bar, it had understood and provided all that we subconsciously asked for in the dim evening light. It took me something like fifteen minutes for me to pick something I’d already had before, but the drink arrived quickly enough. A simple whiskey sour. In a way the drink reminds me of drinking with my family, something easily and quickly prepared and plenty enjoyable. Sitting with my friends who had come all this way intensified the feeling of a reunion. Bar Tonique was quiet and cool, with only a few other patrons dotting the seats around the small bartop. At this point in the summer any non-life-threatening heat outdoors was treasured, so I urged the group out onto the pavement with our drinks. No one else occupied any of the outdoor tables around us, and only a few people walked on the street across from us. It was mostly quiet, aside from a few birds singing in the park and the occasional passing car. Compared to the tourists’ Quarter, it was a true port in a storm. Thinking about psychology in connection with this place, I’m drawn to ideas of community psychology. In Introduction to Community Psychology by Jason Leonard et al, the idea of first-order change is of particular interest to me. In Leonard’s words, “ First-order change attempts to eliminate deficits and problems by focusing exclusively on the individuals,” which feels a bit paradoxical in relation to an idea like community psychology, but it makes sense in the context of Bar Tonique. In other words, by catering to particular individual wants, like few seats, a wide menu, and a somewhat hidden location, the bar actually creates a deeper sense of belonging among its consistent patrons. We ended up sitting for a couple more hours than intended, just sitting and looking at the arch over the park’s entrance, occasionally wandering back inside to talk to the bartenders. We learned Bar Tonique was opened in 2008 as what they called New Orleans’ ‘first free-standing craft cocktail bar,’ and that the menu is consistently expanded again and again. I pictured some older fellow demanding some obscure and arcane addition; the menu is, after all, not very discerning. If it can be made with ingredients of this earth, Bar Tonique can almost certainly make it. It was hard to pull ourselves away, but when we did finally leave, we were more than pleased with our choice in bar. 

On my subsequent voyages to Bar Tonique, I’m always impressed by the extensive menu,  and I always find the atmosphere charming and welcoming, but now my trips there feel imbued with a more insistent kind of attraction. My excitement never matches the dynamic of what I’m going to do; I always get pretty energetic about going to sit, drink, and probably read. But I sing Bar Tonique’s praises left and right. I’ve taken most of my friends there, my partner, as well as my father. Everyone enjoys looking at the arch and wading through the list of drink options, but I continually wonder at my sense of attachment to the place. In his essay about the connection between memory and physical location, Steven Hoelshcer connects the two subjects using the distinction “memory is attached to ‘sites’ that are concrete and physical—the burial places, cathedrals, battlefields, prisons that embody tangible notions of the past—as well as to ‘sites’ that are non‐material—the celebrations, spectacles and rituals that provide an aura of the past.” Thinking about this at Bar Tonique, my mind returns to the night with my friends who came from my hometown in Arkansas to visit me. Surely a single moment like that could not have been so impactful, it was a footnote on their overall visit to New Orleans; we went to several other bars and restaurants together. Instead, perhaps, I’ve built up this sense of memory by making my visits so frequent, kind of like Norm’s character in Cheers. I think I could probably roughly outline each of my earlier visits to Bar Tonique, who I went with, when and why, but ultimately it feels unimportant. In a social sense, I almost feel like I’ve been lucky to find a bar that seems relatively underpopulated to become so enamored with. Hoelscher’s article also makes mention of the social aspect of memory as it’s connected to physical places, and in this way I imagine my four friends from Arkansas might feel similarly about Bar Tonique. Hoelscher’s research of course deals with this phenomenon on a larger scale, and points out that in some ways I’ve really just played right into Bar Tonique’s particular little atmospheric marketing set-up. This makes me wonder, however, about the wider appeal Bar Tonique possesses. After all, it’s not like it’s absolutely empty all the time. The other patrons I’ve observed were varying in age, some older and some younger, with a fair number likely around my age. Nobody seemed to arrive in groups bigger than four, and whether this was planned or not it was always for the best, as that’s as many as Bar Tonique’s biggest tables will hold. This contributes to a permeating sense of closeness between the bartenders and the customers, and I think within the groups of customers themselves. The music has never been very loud, although not quiet enough to get lost. During my most recent journey they were playing Marvin Gaye when I arrived, and the Velvet Underground when I left. It makes it easy to talk, and the bartenders move with relaxed efficiency. Deeper in the Quarter, this is not the typical environment. Perhaps this is part of what draws customers. In Bar Patronage and Motivational Predictors of Drinking in the San Francisco Bay Area, author Karen Trocki looks at “sensation seeking and mood change motives” as they contribute to an individual deciding to either go to a bar or stay in a bar. As far as Bar Tonique is concerned, it represents the tonal shift away from the French Quarter. That quieter, perhaps more relaxed option. It is indeed a mood change, and it can also present a different kind of  “sensation” to be sought. I think maybe it’s because Bar Tonique is so different from the usual New Orleans fare that it has won my patronage. It is proof that the sensation need only be sought to be found. This is also germaine to the idea of community through individual appeal, as it shows some of the ways Bar Tonique is able to meet unique individual desires. 

It feels tricky to apply some larger axiom to what makes me prefer Bar Tonique to the myriad other options that seem to inhabit every corner of the city. There’s got to be something like five different places I could walk to near me, but instead I consistently choose to street car myself those countless blocks to sit in the undisturbed pool of sunshine that is now mine. Maybe it’s something in the environment of Bar Tonique that seems extra inviting, even more hospitable than some of the more energetic joints around town. More susceptible to forming pleasant memories, even.