The roast beef po-boy at Parasol’s has been getting people’s shirts wet since 1952, and nobody seems to mind.
Louis Passauer founded the bar on the corner of Constance and Third Street that year, choosing the name Parasol’s because he figured customers would struggle with his actual last name. His wife Myrtle ran the kitchen, and the roast beef po-boy she developed became the signature so quickly that it outlasted every ownership change that followed.
The recipe has moved through different hands over seven decades, survived Hurricane Katrina, survived a brief closure in 2019 over a tax dispute, and came back each time with the same brown gravy, the same Leidenheimer French bread, and the same mess factor.
The sandwich is built for maximum destruction. Slow-braised roast beef gets piled onto a loaf that shatters at the first bite, sending crust fragments down your shirt and onto the paper beneath it.
The gravy is dark and sticky and coats everything it touches. The standard dress of lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mayo keeps things technically classic, though regular customers treat the gravy volume as a personal negotiation with the kitchen. There is no dignified way to eat it, and the bar’s dim neon lighting seems specifically calibrated for that fact.
The bar itself is worth understanding before visiting. Parasol’s is a neighborhood joint in the old New Orleans sense, the kind of place where the clientele ranges from construction workers to city council members and everyone gets the same treatment.
The annual St. Patrick’s Day block party on Third Street has been going long enough to qualify as a civic institution. Guy Fieri brought a camera crew through for Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in 2008, which moved the needle on tourist traffic without visibly changing anything about how the place operates.
The kitchen runs Monday through Thursday and Sunday from 11am to around 10pm, and Friday and Saturday until 11pm, though calling ahead to confirm is worth the effort. The bar itself stays open considerably later. Parasol’s is at 2533 Constance Street. Call (504) 354-9079 before making the trip.
