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If Rox’s Bar is a college-town playground, the sounds piped in from its digital music box are its main attraction.
Located on the fringe of a dance floor at Rox’s, the jukebox threads all action at the Thibodaux bar. With choices in variance from hip-hop to country, Aretha Franklin-soul to modern pop and classic rock to Nickelback, choice is unrestricted and thus, the sound at Rox’s bar is a direct reflection of its patrons.
“We can play the music we want to hear,” says 23-year-old Tiffany Danos after a dance with her girlfriends. Danos occasionally makes the trip from her Lockport home mostly because of the jukebox, unpretentious crowd and lack of a cover charge, the Fletcher Technical Community College student says.
The two-tiered barroom on St. Phillip Street is crafted to serve a college town. The artwork on its walls ranges in tone, but many of the hanging ornaments lean whimsical – highlighted by a wooden toilet seat hanging near the dance floor.
The low hum of an overtaxed yellow racecar operated by coins periodically sounds during musical lulls. A stripper’s pole in an elevated conclave is frequently used, bartenders say. Even the window air-conditioner unit contributes to the college ambiance.
Joshua Boudreaux, a 25-year-old Thibodaux resident, says he doesn’t frequent the Thibodaux nightlife scene often, but that he likes Rox’s because of its “easygoing environment. You can come here and feel comfortable no matter who you are,” he says.
A handful of small televisions are scattered throughout the bar, and a room with three pool tables draws a small crowd in the establishment’s back end. Entertainment alternative of dancing and socializing are the secondary focus here.
Elizabeth Maxwell, a pseudonym for a girl in her 20s who moved to Thibodaux from Georgia, says she appreciates the “homegrown” bar because of the way people treat one another.
“From day one when I walked in, it was a very warm environment,” Maxwell says.
As the antique cash register sitting atop the huge L-shaped bar on Rox’s first tier will attest, the environment inside the wood-adorned tavern pays homage to history. Only recently did the bar replace the outdated CD-toggled jukebox with a digital selection and begin hosting live music – in the form of a disc jockey on Thursday nights. Debit/credit cards are eschewed for cash only.
The bar first opened in 1955 as a “neighborhood working-man’s bar,” says Glenn “Rocko” Caillouet, owner since 1987. It now appeals to the crowd at Nicholls State University.
For a while, Rocko held a firm grip on the music played at the establishment. He was so commanding, he admits, that upon hearing criticism of one of his choices, he played the song on a loop for the next 45 minutes. “I succeeded in spite of myself,” he says.
But now, he cedes to the jukebox – the featured attraction amid a collection of endearing elements.
“I find the more unique (the bar) can be, the more people talk about it,” Rocko says.
– editor@gumboguide.com
Renee Stevens, Lea Crowder and Allysa Carrs ride the coin-operated car at Rox’s Bar in Thibodaux.
