If you want to understand New Orleans culture, start with the clock. Things here happen later and last longer than anybody planned, and the people who live here mostly think that's the point. We've printed the idea on a shirt: So Far Behind, We're Ahead.
That line gets a laugh from visitors. Locals tend to nod. This post is our attempt to explain the nod, from people who have spent twenty years running shops on Magazine Street and Chartres Street, where the pace of a conversation at the counter has never once matched the pace of the line behind it.
The Complaint We Hear Most
Visitors notice the slowness before anything else. The waiter takes a while. The check takes longer. Somebody at the next table is on their third hour and nobody seems bothered. The streetcar is not, in any meaningful sense, on a schedule.
We get it. Most people arrive from places where efficiency is a virtue and lingering is something you apologize for. Here it works the other way around. If you've been rushed out of a restaurant in New Orleans, something went wrong.
Slow Service Is a Feature
Hear us out on this one. When a server here isn't hovering, it usually means the table is yours for as long as you want it. Nobody is flipping it for the next reservation. You're supposed to order another round and keep talking. The meal is the event, not the thing you do before the event.
There's a local habit we love that sums it up: eat lunch and talk about dinner. It sounds like a joke until you watch a table of New Orleanians do it, planning the next meal in detail while the current one is still on the plates. We made a shirt about that too, Let's Eat Lunch & Talk About Dinner, because some philosophies deserve to be worn.
The Streetcar Comes When It Comes
The St. Charles streetcar line has been running since 1835, which makes it the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world. It was not built for people in a hurry, and it has not changed its mind.
That's sort of the lesson. You can stand at the stop checking an app and getting annoyed, or you can look up at the oaks and get on when it shows up. The ride itself is slow enough to actually see the houses go by. We'd put it up against any bus tour in town, and it costs about what a coffee does.
The Extra Twenty Minutes Is Lagniappe
There's an old word here, lagniappe, for the little something extra a shopkeeper throws in. A thirteenth doughnut. A free taste. We think time works the same way in this city.
The twenty minutes you didn't plan on, when the band played one more song or the bartender told you the story behind the building, is the lagniappe. Nobody budgeted for it. It's often the part you remember. A city that runs on a tight schedule has a hard time giving you that, because there's no slack in the day for it to happen.
Second lines may be the clearest example. A Sunday parade moves at the speed of the band and the social aid and pleasure club leading it, and the crowd follows at that pace for hours. Nobody checks a watch. If you've never been, read what a second line is and find one on the WWOZ calendar.
It Isn't Laziness
This is the part that gets misunderstood. "Slow" here doesn't mean nobody works. The people who make this city run, cooks and musicians and bartenders and nurses and teachers, work as hard as anyone anywhere, often harder, and often in the heat.
What's different is what the city decides to protect. Time on the porch. A conversation that wanders off topic and doesn't come back. You can call it inefficient. We'd call it a set of priorities, and a lot of people who move here say it's the reason they came.
Taking the Clock With You
New Orleans time travels, which we learned the hard way. During the Katrina evacuation, Blake sketched "Be A New Orleanian, Wherever You Are" on a sticker at Mello Joy coffeehouse in Lafayette. It became a way for people scattered across the country to recognize each other, and part of what they were recognizing was a way of living that was slower and a little behind.
You can bring some of that home after a trip. Linger at dinner. Talk to the person next to you at the bus stop. Let a five-minute conversation run fifteen. Wear the shirt if it helps you remember.
We're not in a hurry. Neither is the city. That's how we got ahead.
New Orleans Culture: FAQ
Why is everything slower in New Orleans?
Locals tend to see the slower pace as a choice. Meals and neighborhood traditions like second lines are treated as the main event rather than something to rush through, so service and schedules bend around them.
What does "so far behind, we're ahead" mean?
It's our way of saying that New Orleans, by refusing to hurry, held on to things other cities lost, like long meals and front-porch conversation. Dirty Coast has printed it on a shirt.
What is lagniappe in New Orleans?
Lagniappe means a little something extra, traditionally a small bonus a shopkeeper adds to a purchase. Locals use it for any unexpected extra, including extra time.
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