Charlotte, NCCajun

Open since 1985 in a century-old house at 1800 East Seventh Street, with live jazz seven nights a week and forty years of Elizabeth regulars. The kitchen cooks crawfish etouffee, seafood gumbo and New Orleans barbecue shrimp, and the warren of small rooms upstairs and down keeps the whole place feeling like a party you wandered into.

In the Arboretum shopping center at 8036 Providence Road since 2000, cooking jambalaya, crawfish etouffee and red beans and rice for South Charlotte. More than thirty-five hot sauces sit on hand for anyone who wants to push a plate further, and the room stays casual enough to walk into straight from work.

Baton Rouge native Kristy Jackson cooked out of a shared kitchen for years before moving into a full-service room at 1300 South Boulevard in April 2026. Gumbo, etouffee, po' boys and gator bites carry the menu, and the sit-down space finally gives the food somewhere to be eaten hot instead of out of a container.

Open since 1986 at 321 South Church Street, a block from the ballpark, with stained glass over the bar and a menu that leans Cajun without abandoning comfort food. It is the kind of Uptown room that has outlasted most of what was built around it, and game nights fill it fast.