Real New Orleans Barbecue

I was sitting at the short end of the corner bar at Frey Smoked Meat Company in New Orleans, Louisiana.  You now know where to get the best barbecue in New Orleans.  Frey Smoked Meat Company.  ‘Nuff said.

When I sit at the short end of the corner bar at Frey Smoked Meat Company, I look out the corner window.  

Directly across the street in a straight diagonal line from my barstool, catty corner from Frey Smoked Meat Company, across the two parking lots bisected by Conti Street, is a GNC shop that occupies the downtown lakeside inner corner of the Mid City Market shopping center on North Carrollton Avenue.

Frey Smoked Meat Company is a barbecue restaurant with a long heritage in the New Orleans and the southern Louisiana meat industry.  Ask a Creole if they know Frey meat and they’ll lick their lips in happy reminiscence.  The Frey family name goes way back. 

GNC is a nutritional supplement retailer founded, and still headquartered, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  In June 2020, GNC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and the New York Stock Exchange delisted GNC from trading effective June 30, 2020.  The GNC store across from where I sit at Frey Smoked Meat Company seems to still be doing a good business, from what I can see.  No one ever leaves the GNC store to come to Frey Smoked Meat Company.  They go right to their car in the parking lot on the downtown side of Conti Street.  I wonder why.

Frey Smoked Meat Company opened on November 11, 2016, and this is still its only location.  2020 hasn’t been a record-breaking year for Frey Smoked Meat Company, but, the restaurant has survived the COVID-19 restrictions and, a little after November 2020, Frey Smoked Meat Company has even thrived a bit at its location at 4141 Bienville Street, Suite 110.  It is impossible to keep a good barbecue restaurant down for long.  Give the people what they want.

GNC stands for, “General Nutrition Centers.”

REAL NEW ORLEANS BARBECUE IS REAL NEW ORLEANS.

I don’t know anyone who is a regular at Frey Smoked Meat Company who goes to GNC, even though the opportunity is a convenient stroll across the parking lot.  I’ve never been inside.  I’ve looked at the window when I’ve walked by but I have never looked in the window at GNC.

When a person eats regularly at Frey Smoked Meat Company, they get all the nutrition they need.  People who eat a lot of barbecue don’t usually require nutritional supplements.  Smoked meats contain an amazing amount of vitamins.  It’s in the rub.

Eat your vegetables.  Pair smoked meat with coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans, corn, corn bread, French fries, or Brussels sprouts to get optimal nutritional value from every meal of real New Orleans barbecue.  That’s the Frey way.

A barbecue platter at Frey Smoked Meat Company includes the meat of your choice with your choice of two sides——meat and two veg as the British like to say.  It is a meal made in the heart of Mid City.  It is much better than a handful of pills and spoonful of powder from GNC.  Everybody is different.

When you want some real food with all the fixings, you’ll go to Frey Smoked Meat Company.  I don’t blame you.  Plenty of smart people do.  There is nothing wrong with being satisfied.  

Speaking of satisfaction, when it is finally time for you to visit New Orleans, I know where you should stay.  You are on the right website.  Read all about it.

La Belle Esplanade is a small personalized B&B hotel that is here to help you experience New Orleans like you want to be here.  There is tourist New Orleans and there is real New Orleans.  You should be a New Orleanian wherever you are—-there is no better place than at La Belle Esplanade.  You belong in the real New Orleans.

We look forward to meeting you in person and sharing our part of this wonderful city we call home.