Parkway Bakery and Tavern: A New Orleans Original

Lucy had been using third-person scheduling apps to compliment her hustle while she was in New Orleans. She filled in days off with temporary jobs of all types. While working at the Marriot on Canal St. a local resident recommended she visit Parkway Bakery and Tavern for one of the best shrimp po-boys around. It took Lucy out of the French Quarter but she figured she’d have to adventure if she wanted to find the real deal. It wouldn’t be some place on Frenchmen St. with white tablecloths. It would be further from the parade of tourists visitors weaving up and down the close streets. Welcome to Parkway Bakery and Tavern: A New Orleans Original and the birth of the poor boy.

Tamiami Sammy had spent the better part of his life searching for the world’s best grouper sandwich. Lucy had taken up the mantle and had parlayed that mandate into the hunt for the pinnacle of shrimp po boys. From the Florida Keys to Gulf Shores and New Orleans, she’d eaten them all over the south and she was proud to have taken up the cause. Her time in New Orleans had been entirely spent looking for good food and cheap beer.

Parkway Bakery and Tavern first opened for business in 1911, and it has been a New Orleans icon ever since. Charles Goering, Sr., a German baker, built Parkway on the corner of Hagan and Toulouse in Mid-City New Orleans and ran it until 1922, when Henry Timothy, Sr. purchased it with the intent of continuing to run it as a neighborhood bakeshop.

Back in those days, every neighborhood in NOLA had a bakery on the corner. Over the next seven years, Timothy, Sr. established Parkway’s reputation for delicious and fresh bread, donuts, and his famous Seven Sisters sweet rolls. But this was just the beginning of Parkway’s innovative and historic legacy.

In 1929, the poor boy was created by Bennie and Clovis Martin (read the full history of the poor boy), two brothers who owned Martin Bros restaurant and were former streetcar operators. The Martin brothers came up with the simple but hearty sandwich when the Amalgamated Association of Electric Street Railway Employees, Division 194, went on strike, sending 1,800 unionized streetcar drivers and motormen off the job and onto the picket line.

The Martin brothers gave away sandwiches to the strikers and the story goes that when a striking union member walked into their restaurant, Benny would call to Clovis, “Here comes another poor boy!”

In solidarity, Timothy, Sr. added the “Poor Boy” shop to Parkway that year and fed union members and conductors French fry poor boys for free. Meanwhile, Parkway was also selling the recently invented “Poor Boy” sandwich to the workers at the American Can Company. They operated twenty-four hours a day, with the addition of the poor boy, so did Parkway.

This Parkway po-boy could easily be the best, but honestly, such comparisons are beneath us. This particular specimen was prepared in a simple, delicious way common to the region. No nonsense with shaved lettuce, pickles and tomatoes on a French sandwich bun with tartar sauce. The one Lucy had was particularly long with perfectly seasoned fried shrimp pouring out onto the paper which she gladly lapped them up like baby sea turtles on the beach.

The entire meal consisted of a poor boy with fresh french bread, flash-fried Louisiana wild caught Gulf shrimp, chicken and sausage gumbo, french fries and a Frozen Porch Swing Vodka Lemonade. Checkmate.

Parkway now serves on average 1,000 people per day. Some are locals and their families, and others are travelers from all parts of the world. Jay, Justin, and other Parkway team members have been featured on television and in various media projects that have told the story of Parkway one way or the other.

Visit the Parkway website and like their social media sites on Facebook and Instagram,

Thanks to Justin for hosting and Rachel and Eric for taking us in. Keep up with the wranglers as we send forth Dispatches from the Quarter from a break in the festival season. Support those who support the wranglers and find your way to Parkway Bakery and Tavern next time you’re in New Orleans. Sit in the upstairs bar to avoid the wait.