From Friday to Sunday - and every day in between - downtown Baton Rouge is a playground for the locals who love to eat, drink, and be merry! And the best part? No cars needed! From morning coffee to late-night cocktails, downtown Baton Rouge has a bite, a trail, a book, an adventure for you.

Friday Afternoon/Evening – Happy Hour and a Show

Before we start our Friday evening fun, we love to grab a happy hour cocktail at one of the many bars downtown. Don’t sleep on Passe - their happy hour menu features lots of delicious $5 drinks. Mother’s and The River Room are our go-tos for unique cocktails.

After drinks, head over to Live After 5 for a free outdoor concert! Elevate your experience by stopping by Town Square Pizza to pick up a delicious, downtown Baton Rouge-themed pizza and drink from one of the local vendors.

When Live After 5 is not in-season, walk across the street to The Hartley-Vey Theatre (part of The Manship Theatre) for a hilarious evening with Family Dinner - our favorite improv troupe! (For all our comedy skeptics out there, we’ve never been interested in comedy shows, but cannot get enough of Family Dinner - they are HILARIOUS and you can’t beat the ticket prices).

Saturday Morning – Markets and Coffee Chats

Start your Saturday off right with a visit to the Farmer’s Market! Our favorite part of the market is that the food changes with every season. We love to let the veggies guide our meal planning for the week (life hack: get a random veggie and then type in random veggie recipe on Pinterest and try something new!)  

After the Farmer’s Market, mosey on over to The Vintage for coffee. We love to make breakfast at home, usually with peppers from the market, but The Vintage has delicious breakfast as well - we recommend The Vintage Breakfast. Bonus, it's dog-friendly! The baristas look for our dog Chicken every Saturday and she looks for her treat!

We very recently discovered a new coffee spot - House Brew at 227 Florida Ave! They have DELICIOUS coffee, a cute atmosphere, roast their beans in-house, and most importantly - pup cups! (We’ve started skipping coffee at home during the week and make the three-block walk to House Brew instead.)  

Saturday Afternoon – Levee Bike Rides

Grab your bike and head to the levee!

During football season, we love to use the levee to get to campus for tailgates and bypass all that gameday traffic! (Another life hack - seriously cannot recommend this one enough! Even if you don’t live downtown, park there, hop on a bike and head to your destination).  

When it is not football season, the levee is still great! You can ride to L’Auberge Casino and wave to the cows or if you’re feeling super adventurous, bike to Istrouma Brewery.  

Sunday Morning – Walk, Run or Zoom

You can start your Sundays at your own pace. Allie loves to take Chicken for a walk from Beauregard Town to Spanish Town with a stop at the Capitol so she can get her zoomies out. While Jake prefers to go for a run on the levee to LSU’s campus or take the Greenway to Mid City.

Sunday Afternoon – Relax and Reset

By Sunday afternoon, it is time to relax and reset! We recommend enjoying First Free Sunday at The Capitol Park Museum or Louisiana Art and Science Museum, all right downtown. And our personal favorite way to wrap up the weekend is heading to the River Branch Library, picking out a new book for the week, and going up to the fourth floor to enjoy the gorgeous views of our city.

Downtown Story Time

We love being downtown so much - it is why we both choose to live and work here. There is something so special about being about to take a walk in a city or attend a Mardi Gras parade on your own street. In fact, we love it so much that Jake recently proposed to me (Allie) on one of our walks around downtown!