parkway bakery & tavern

best shrimp poboy in nola. um, delicious! so so so delicious! i just took a friend from canada here for his first poboy. he loved it as much as i do. they have the most amazing overstuffed poboys... they dont skrimp on them shrimp! the sweet potatofriesare good. go there. eat food. be fat and happy.

one of the best po boys in town. sweet potatofriesare excellent as are all the po boys. roast beef lately has had too much gravey and can be bland for a local but a little hot sauce fixs that. go there everytime we are in town. bar staff is great and a large bloody mary is just right sunday after a weekend in the city.

too loud, expensive & filled w/ tourists. if you're looking for a mediocre hamburger,friesand drink for $15 this is your place. always filled with tourists who don't have a clue. staff is slow and somewhat dimwitted too. lots of better places to go without all the bs.

the beef & gravy poor boy eat amazing. shrimp one was stuffed with shrimp but lacking flavor. hadfriescovered in gravy and cheddar - those were the best part! also tried the pound cake which was very moist.

cons: on a thursday at lunch time took a full hour from the parking lot to getting our food. also seating has a lot to be desired. only one register with such a long line was terrible. & our of bread pudding.

great place and great poboys! my friend and i both agreed that it was one of our best overall experiences in nola this trip. mike behind the bar explained how to order as soon as we entered. we decided to sit at the bar to order. we each ordered the regular size- one shrimp and one oyster. mike let us know that there was an off the menu large that could be split between two seafoods, thus saving us some money. throughout the meal he continued to check on us. really great guy! the poboys themselves were packed with seafood, not over breaded, and really flavorful. we loved the bread, especially. i hadfrieswhich were hot and seasoned perfectly. my friend had some zapps chips. can't go wrong with that. i'll definitely be back to try some other poboys, gumbo, etc.

while i don't know how their fried oyster or fried shrimp stacks up to other poorboy options in new orleans, i do know that the roast beef is nothing special. in particular, the lack of gravy bothered me. the fact that my bread was not absolutely sopping by the end of my meal was a significant indicator of the poorboy's average quality. in my opinion, any great roast beef poorboy should almost require the use of utensils in order to consume it. 

also, the sweet potatofrieswere nothing special, and seeing as how this place started off as a bakery, i was very underwhelmed with the loaf of bread that comprised my poorboy.

overall, i found it to be overpriced and certainly not worthy of the accolades it has received.

with that being said, i very much enjoyed the outdoor seating and felt like i was dining at a true neighborhood establishment. perhaps i will give them another try and see how their oyster of shrimp poor boys stack up, but there are certainly better roast beef options out there.

taste: 7/10

cost: 6/10

dining area/decor: 8/10

customer service: 8.5/10

location: 8/10

parkway bakery and tavern ended up being my favorite, partly because it was such a fun experience, but also because they truly had my favorite po'boys. because there were so many of us, we got to try so many menu items. i tried shrimp, french dip, roast beef, regularfriesand sweet potatofrieswith gravy, fried pickles, and bread pudding for dessert. the shrimp was really good--they were fried perfectly, but could have used more sauce--but the roast beef was the real winner. it was so tender it was falling apart; it was like having a pot roast dinner on a sandwich.

best shrimp po boy in town.. favorite place to get a po boy. they have the best shrimp po boy in town and a side of gravy cheesefriesdon't hurt either. go early...it gets super busy. i love you, parkway!

not as good as they say. went there because of good reviews, and we were disappointed. the roast beef poboy had pieces that were dried out and stringy - difficult to chew. the seasoning seemed off as well. the oyster poboy was adequate, but we have had better sandwiches many places like r&o's, sammy's, etc. it looked nothing like the one pictured on their website in terms of amount of oysters. the cheesefrieswere embarrassing. a little bit of cheese melted over a small amount of soggy precut frozen fries. plus our total was $40 for those items and 2 fountain cokes. maybe it was a bad day, but the place seems way overhyped.

those fries!. roast beef is acceptable, nothing to write home about but also nothing to particularly avoid. thosefrieswith debris. that's what's going on. the end.

just ate surf n turf..amazing! ! gumbo,friesn gravy a must. we looked it up on urbanspoon headed home to br. we will be back.

awesome roast beef po boy. the sweet potatofrieswith roast and gravy on top was a nice twist too. would definitely recommend!

parkway have a pretty extensive menu by poboy standards, a huge range and even a stack of vegetarian options, including a caprese poboy!! they also have sweet potatofriesas a side option.

i didn’t have a car when i visited parkway, and it took some organising to get out there (ie: it was a destination trip, not close to anything else). what i got was (delicious) battered fried shrimp, with basic vegetable dressings, on leidenheimer’s bread. because nearly every single poboy shop in the entire city of new orleans uses leidenheimer’s baguette for their sandwiches.

solid neighborhood joint. i just polished of a bbq beef poboy, fries, and a soda, and i'm feeling good. i live down the street, and it's nice to be able to walk over to parkway and grab a bite for dinner when the fridge is bare. and parkway never disappoints. i'm not poboy-crazy, so i've sampled the classics and the interesting variations parkway has to offer. i've never felt like i ordered a dud, and time after time i get consistently good food. fresh ingredients, generous portions, and friendly service.
parkway also has pulled off a feat that few places in nola have done as well. it somehow has maintained a very local/community vibe while catering to tourists. walk into the bar, and you feel like you're at pal's around the corner. 'what's pal's?,' you say. my point exactly. but the constant flow of traffic allows them to stay open late, serving a relatively large selection of food. the only drawback is it's national appeal is reflected in the prices. can one feel indignant about overpriced food when you've bought two full dinners for under twenty dollars. yes, i can.
that being said, i need to set the record straight. this is not the best poboy in new orleans. this is not one of the best restaurants in new orleans. even limiting it to restaurants in the price range, i don't think this would make my top 25. the food is consistently good, never great. every poboy i've had lurks in the middle ground between overly bland and great, never quite making the leap. thefriesalways have a raw, greasy aftertaste. and the 4$ i spend on them leaves another aftertaste.
of the dive-y eateries that attract tourists in new orleans, parkway is a great place to go -- and bring visitors. you can't come without eating a poboy. you'll leave satisfied and you can take a stroll down the bayou wearing one of those little hats. (did obama wear a hat?). and when you need to grab a (substantial) bite cause you're too lazy to cook, it's a great place to be able to rely on.

but that bite isn't a taste of heaven.

they were delicious. you could tell that the bread was freshly made in-house and the toppings were good quality and plentiful. parkway bakery & tavern offers over 30 different kinds of sandwiches as well as gumbo, chili and standard sandwich sides:fries(regular and sweet potato, potato salad and potato chips).