"See that sign back there?" the bearded and pony-tailed 60-year-old said, pointing to a carved wooden plaque behind the bar boldly inscribed with the words NEVER CLOSES. "That sign has been there for 14 years and as far as I am concerned never means never. We never closed for any other hurricane and we sure ain't going to close for this one."
Other cities have palaces, cathedrals or museums. But the cultural centre of New Orleans is the French Quarter, and Bourbon Street is its tacky, faded but beautiful heart, a hustling and bustling neon heaven of bars, strip clubs and restaurants that encapsulated the spirit of the Big Easy.
The French Quarter was one of the few areas that remained relatively untouched by the hurricane, and inside the little bar a collection of ageing hippies, eccentrics and renegades were desperately trying to keep its spirit alive, despite the cataclysmic events that have unfolded around them.
So, instead of heading for the nearest evacuation centre for a bus out of town they sat and drank beer.
"I've been here since the storm struck and I just want to see it through," said Chad Prayther, 34, sipping on a Budweiser with a whisky chaser. "We have water, we have food, we have drink, why would we leave?"
Captain Kevin Anderson of the New Orleans police department, unwrapping a large cigar he had just taken from a tin in his pocket, appeared in no hurry to make the drinkers leave despite the mandatory evacuation order from the mayor of New Orleans.
"You know, if they're going to rebuild this city Bourbon Street is where it is going to have to start. This is the centre of New Orleans, everything spreads out from here," he said.
A few blocks away in Ol' Toone's bar on Decatur Street there was no one on the pool table and no way of playing Joe Cocker on the classic juke-box, but there was still beer, even if it was warm.
"I'm the lowest guy on the totem pole so I was asked by the owner to stay on and keep an eye on the place," said the barman Billy Judd. "He said I could help myself to beer but I think it's maybe getting time to go. You smell that stench?"
Mr Judd, 52, originally from Philadelphia, has been offering beers to the national guardsmen who patrol the streets and are now his only neighbours.
But even he is coming round to the idea of moving out.
"The smell is just starting to get to me so my plan is to go to a little town in Texas and look for work there. I've never been to Texas but I've no money and I can't stay here much longer."
