Tigers Lounge (New Orleans Leather Bar/Home of the Lancers MC)

Tiger’s Lounge — New Orleans Gay Leather Bar Tee

In the late 1970s, 740 Burgundy Street was home to Tiger’s Lounge, one of the gay bars tucked into the streets of the French Quarter just beyond the brighter lights of Bourbon.

Tiger’s was already operating at the address by 1978, and contemporary gay publications list it as a 24-hour bar, seven days a week. There were weekday happy hours, Saturday beer busts, live music, and something wonderfully named “Midnight Madness” every night. 

It belonged to a New Orleans gay nightlife scene that stretched through Burgundy, St. Ann, Rampart, Royal and Bourbon Streets—a dense little world of neighborhood bars, discos, leather spots, bathhouses and late-night cruising. Tiger’s catered to the more masculine side of that world, with the leather-and-Levi’s crowd becoming closely associated with this particular address.

And that history continued long after the Tiger’s name disappeared. 740 Burgundy later became Rawhide, carrying the location forward as one of the French Quarter’s best-known gay leather bars. Even decades later, the address was still being promoted specifically for its leather/Levi’s crowd.