104 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130
Website, reservations, social channels here.
- Built above a century-old family-run clothier for men on historic Canal Street in New Orleans, the Rubenstein Hotel matches the successful formula downstairs: Guests can expect comfort and attentive service in a setting that’s an oasis at one of the city’s great intersections.
- Embracing the haberdashery’s history, the hotel offers a prime location for a museumgoing visit to the city – or a center-of-it-all base for Carnival immersion.
- Thanks to the J Collection for sponsoring my night at the Rubenstein Hotel.
The history
When Morris Rubenstein surveyed Canal Street from his brand-new storefront haberdashery on its opening day – April 12, 1924 – he saw one of America’s great thoroughfares.
The broad (171 feet) street had been surveyed in 1807 as an actual canal that was never built. Locals call roadway medians the “neutral ground” because Canal once separated the French Quarter’s downriver French Creoles from the upriver, Anglo, American Sector, now the Central Business District. Its early structures housed a combination of retail and residential uses, and became a great commercial corridor by the middle of the 19th century, as well as a hub for arts and entertainment.
Vitascope Hall opened in 1896 at 623 Canal. A sidewalk sign marks the spot, across Canal and a few doors down from Rubensteins, in front of Voodoo Market. The sign describes the Vitascope as “America’s first movie theater” but also “the first indoor seated movie theater in the United States.” Another source suggests playing it safe and calling it “one of America’s first dedicated movie theaters.” Per the Historic New Orleans Collection’s Vieux Carre Survey, the building that stands there dates to 1900, replacing the structure that housed the Vitascope. The survey page for 623 Canal features a few drawings of the original building, which housed the Bank of Orleans prior to making cinema history. The movie palaces (the Joy, Loew’s State, Saenger) that emerged on Canal in the next century were part of a continuum that began decades earlier on the street.
Canal was also a hub for musical instrument retailers and music publishers, who in the days before recorded sound distributed sheet music to home piano players.
Brothers Elkin and Sam would eventually join Morris in the business, and so Rubenstein Bros. embarked on a century and counting of a family-run business outfitting visitors and locals in fine menswear (with a brief diversion to attire for women during World War II).
A Times-Picayune ad from 1929 documented the Rubenstein Bros. store’s swift growth in a cascading series of photos, starting with the first small storefront (“one show window, one counter, and a few shelves”): “But every time a customer left our store, he left with a comfortable inner feeling of having procured a good money’s worth, plus satisfaction with our pleasant service.” Expansions followed in 1925, 1927, and 1929. A New Orleans Item ad from 1930 offered broadcloth and madras dress shirts (with collar attached) for $1. “Famous Rubenstein ties” were on sale, two for $1.
In those days, more than two dozen New Orleans streetcar lines running on 221 miles of track had evolved from horse-drawn conveyances (starting in 1835) to the electrified cars still in operation today. The four current lines run in front of, beside, and near the present-day Rubensteins.
In the 20th century, the streetcars also delivered shoppers to huge department stores (D.H. Holmes, Godchaux’s, Maison Blanche, Krauss) elsewhere on Canal. One of them, D.H. Holmes, is the setting for the opening scene of John Kennedy Toole’s comic novel A Confederacy of Dunces, which today is acknowledged with a statue of antagonizing protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly near the entrance to the Hyatt Centric Fench Quarter Hotel, developed from the former store building. It’s across the street and down a bit from Rubensteins. Morris could see it from his store’s entrance today.
Also in the 20th century, new convention hotels would grow on Canal. At its riverside terminus, so would the World Trade Center, today’s Four Seasons Hotel. Near it, a massive casino would join the streetscape in the 21st century.
“Bros.” disappeared from the store’s name in 1999. The announcement that the structures above Rubensteins would be converted into a boutique hotel (in second- and third-story spaces that had housed executive offices and stock rooms) came in 2022. The grand opening was in January 2024, in time to celebrate the store’s 100th birthday.
The property
The conversion is ingenious, creating a comfortable, contemporary hotel within several very old structures. The Central Business District Historic Landmarks Commission lists the construction dates for the series of buildings that house the store and now hotel as ranging from 1824 to 1900. Labeled “Rubenstein Row,” it forms “the most intact group of 19th-century structures still standing on Canal Street,” featuring the work of several notable New Orleans architects. More about the structures that comprise the complex here and here.
The guest rooms behind the bright-red doors on the second and third levels of the hotel give no indication of the ages of the surrounding structures. I’ve stayed in hotels in newer buildings that feel much older than the feeling delivered by the guest-room experience at the Rubenstein.
Themes established in the goods sold in the Rubensteins store are carried out in the lobby and 40 guest rooms. Everywhere, photo proofs once used in Rubensteins advertising are displayed as enlarged posters. Many of the rooms offer St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street views. The rooms run from standard kings to standard two queens to larger rooms and suites. There is a two-level Presidential Suite overlooking Canal Street. At the time of my visit (March 2026), Sunday rates ranged from $169 to $299, more for rooms the size of mine and larger.
Guest experience
My two-room suite had a separate bedroom and a living area with a couch, chair, small table for two, a work desk, and a wet-bar area with a fridge.
The lobby has a few different seating areas. One faces onto St. Charles. Another was the Madison Shop Bar. A third was tucked around a corner decorated with red-wire wall sculptures depicting some of the contempo menswear once sold in the Madison Shop, a Rubenstein offshoot aiming at a younger clientele.
Among the photos surrounding a clock above a red couch opposite the bar is one depicting a visit to the store by designer Oleg Cassini, a Mardi Gras shot on St. Charles pointing toward Uptown, and an ad for the All-American Jeans sportswear label launched by the Rubensteins in 1971. An ad for the jeans, featuring (presumably) a father and two young sons walking hand-in-hand through the French Quarter, was in my room. Another ad for the jeans featuring the Neville Brothers circa 1980, was above my work desk. (A store renovation somewhere along the line revealed a hallway full of customer signatures, including Dr. John, Edwin Edwards, Liberace. The wallpaper was preserved. During my post-Mardi Gras visit, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Pete Fountain, and Aaron Neville were celebrated in one of the store’s street-level windows.)
Directly above the window display, my second-floor room overlooked St. Charles Avenue, and so was regularly visited by the sound of a streetcar making its turn toward Uptown. Though it was a Sunday, Canal Street was sonically quite lively into the night. You’re staying in the middle of everything at the Rubenstein, and it sometimes sounds like it. Didn’t bother me a bit. Some online reviewers, while universally praising the hotel staff (who were great) and describing the guest rooms as “classy,” “very nice,” and “beautiful, clean,” found the exterior noise level a hindrance to deep sleep. There are windowless interior rooms at the hotel that are likely less lively, if escaping the sounds of the city is a nocturnal goal.
Food and drink
A few steps into the Quarter: GW Fins, Mr. B.’s Bistro, Bourbon House. A few steps up Canal, and a little more affordable with very good food: Snapper’s.
Early coffee: There is free coffee in the lobby. Beyond the hotel’s doors, an early coffee-haver’s task was more of a challenge than I expected. I caught the 24-hour IHOP a block toward the lake restocking its kitchen during the 5 a.m. hour, making it a 23-hour IHOP. The other brunch places nearby had later opening times.
Nearest martini: There are countless options within just a few blocks, including the Madison Shop Bar downstairs. I opted for the bar at Fogo de Chao, a half-block toward the river on Canal. It was excellent.
Location
Primo. The Rubenstein is an obvious choice for visitors hoping to experience total Carnival immersion, as the parade route runs right past the front door. There will be inconveniences due to the crowds, but they’ll be worth it if you’re a fiend for school bands, flying beads, and fake royalty. Outside of Carnival season, I’d also recommend the hotel as an all-in destination for a museumgoing visit. The French Quarter museums are within walking distance (as are the Sazerac House and Vue Orleans), and the streetcars that pass the property can take you to Museum District destinations (National WWII Museum, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Contemporary Arts Center, Civil War Museum, and Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience), all the way to the New Orleans Museum of Art and its fabulous sculpture garden, or around the Quarter to the New Orleans Jazz Museum. The downriver entrance to the Morial Convention Center is an 18-minute walk.
Website
The site’s history section, subtitled “A Century of Style in New Orleans,” is brisk and colorful, with just enough timeline info to give a visitor some background. A photo gallery accurately depicts the rooms and public spaces. The “store” drop-down takes you downstairs, with an introduction to the staff, a bit of history, and some enthusiastic customer testimonials.
Parking
Valet parking on-site is $50 per day. There are parking garages and lots nearby that may be less, though probably not much.
Extra things
- When I visited the Rubensteins store the morning after my one-night stay, the J Collection folks were kind to set me up with David Rubenstein, who gave me a tour of the history displayed on the store’s walls, including photos and documents that tell the family business’s story. (David is son of Elkin, brother of Andre; a third-generation Rubenstein, Kenny, is the store’s chief experience officer.) Items there included a shot of what’s believed to be a young Louis Armstrong performing at a 1918 Liberty Bond rally on Canal, near what would soon become the store; a photo of Morris, Elkin, and Sam in their shop from 1924; and a framed, pencil-written ledger from opening day back in 1924 showing a profit of 47 cents. It wasn’t the first time I had met David. A few years ago, I was at my desk at the Historic New Orleans Collection one day when the phone rang. This didn’t happen much then, because there was a pandemic on and Hurricane Ida had recently shut down the city for a couple of weeks. (At least that’s the timing I remember. Foot traffic in the Quarter was zilch.) The caller was David, wondering if we had any promotional rack cards Rubensteins could display in the store. I grabbed a handful and headed right over to thank a neighbor who was looking out for his neighbors.
- Once you’ve been outfitted in some fine threads at Rubensteins, stroll next door to Meyer the Hatter, an equally venerable local business, and get a lid for your melon.