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behind the bar
E
ven the dirt inside is charming, and
everything is coated in gentle layers
of that charm. The light bulbs seem
destined to dim at any moment. Clad in
bowties — a few sporting full mustaches
and long sideburns — the waiters pouring
out the bar’s signature Pimm’s Cups appear
to be leftovers from a time when the walls
wore fresh paint.
The oldest part of the structure at 500 Rue
Chartres was built by Claude François
Girod in 1797, but the section now known
as the Napoleon House was completed
by his brother, Mayor Nicholas Girod, in
1814. In 1821, Nicholas Girod offered
the building to Napoleon in his exile —
as a refuge and a symbol of the friendship
and hospitality New Orleans sought to
offer. Jean Lafitte was empowered to send
a ship,
La S
é
raphine,
to carry Napoleon to
his new home in Louisiana, but three days
before the tides would take the
S
é
raphine
,
Napoleon went home to meet his maker.
This story is recounted as every carriage driver urges the horse to
pull round the Chartres Street corner; every visitor is sent home
with a scrap of history no one can prove. There is no proof that the
alleged ship meant to sail, or that the ship herself even existed. That
matters little to the bar. It inspires the retelling and has born the
name and the liquor licenses since the mid 1900s.
While the Napoleon House changed hands multiple times in the
later 1800s, Joseph Impastato rented the building in 1914 for $20 a
month and ran it as a grocery downstairs with living quarters
for his family above. The Impastato family purchased the
building in 1920 for a price tag of $14,000, and Joe lived
there past his 100
th
birthday, passing the business down
to his brother Peter during World War II.
Salvatore Impastato took over in 1971 and has
changed almost nothing. The scarred walls host
portraits of past family members, odd paintings that
were either sold to Peter Impastato by struggling artists or
rented out in exchange for cash in hand. Knowing exactly
how something made its way onto the picked and peeling
walls of the Napoleon House is about as easy as predicting
the date it will come down. In a show of his tenacity for
letting history determine décor, when one of the pictures
warped and fell from its frame, Salvatore just left the empty
frame on the wall. From the classical music played off of
albums to the register behind the bar sitting silent and
broken under a clay bust of Napoleon, the atmosphere and
ambiance have little truck with modern time. The register
was once set to read $18.03 as the final sale, alluding to the
date that marks the Louisiana Purchase, but a short circuit
sent the numbers sliding to $400.00. In typical fashion, no
one has lifted a finger to fix it.
Pimm’s Cup
The Pimm’s Cup has become as synonymous
with The Napoleon House over the years as
the story of Napoleon’s wasted rescue plans.
The irony of a British tonic supporting the
profits of a decidedly French-loving bar is
overlooked and buried under the fine layers
of sunset-tinted dust and idle, afternoon
conversations.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
1½ ounces Pimm’s #1
3
ounces lemonade
Top off with 7UP
Cucumber slice, for garnish
HOW TO PREP
Fill a tall 12 ounce glass with ice and Pimm’s and
lemonade.Top with 7UP and garnish with cucumber.
Napoleon House
