Fred's Lounge

Fred's keeps a calendar most bars would not: it opens on Saturday mornings, and every day only in Mardi Gras week. Alfred Tate, born in 1912 and dead in 1992, bought the place in 1946, when it was still Tate's Bar. Its radio broadcasts have been in Louisiana French since 1962, and the room opens at an hour when most bars are closed. In 1996 Governor Mike Foster declared it the launching place of the Evangeline Parish French renaissance, a title bestowed on a bar that still keeps mostly Saturday-morning hours.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Prairie Acadian Cultural Center — 9.6 mi
  A National Park Service center in Eunice on the Cajun prairie, with exhibits on the Acadians who settled the prairies, a Courir de Mardi Gras display, free music and cooking demonstrations, and the shuttered Liberty Theatre nearby.
• Le Vieux Village and the Venus House — 22 mi
  A heritage park in Opelousas built around the Venus House of about 1791, the home of a free Creole woman of color, Marie Francois Venus, with an old schoolhouse, Methodist church and the visitor center's zydeco music exhibit.
• Coushatta Powwow and Koasati Heritage Day — 24 mi
  The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana's annual powwow and its free Koasati Heritage Day, held at the tribe's resort in Kinder.

More markers nearby

• Evangeline Bank & Trust Company — 9.4 mi
• Ville Platte — 9.4 mi
• City Of Eunice — 9.5 mi
• Johnson's Grocery — 9.9 mi