With a mix of customers from both local and faraway sources, Dempsey's fits a popular definition for a great New Orleans restaurant: a funky, Yat kind of place in N old neighborhood, serving enormous piles of food from a menu overwhelmingly dominated by fried seafood. When it's at its best, it's not bad, but the size of the portions and low prices are the main selling points.
The restaurant is named not for the famous prizefighter, but for a much-loved, old-style crime reporter for the old States-Item newspaper. Indeed, he seems the perfect namesake for a neighborhood hangout in the Ninth Ward. It opened in 1978, had a few ups and downs, but after about a decade had established itself as the place to go if you measured restaurant excellence by portion size.
The restaurant occupies a well-worn shotgun cottage, and makes full use of all the local color that might fit onto the walls. The music is largely from the Sixties, with a heavy emphasis on local pop and R&B artists. Anyone with Yat blood (I am a Yat passing as a cultured person) will feel a certain familiar comfort here.
Instead of ordering seafood platters with a few of everything, get several plates of one item or another and pass it around.
| Attitude | 0 |
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| Environment | 1 |
| Hipness | 0 |
| Local Color | 2 |
| Service | 0 |
| Value | 1 |
| Wine | 0 |
