5 /5 Eddy Roger Parker: There is a place in Baton Rouge—down near the river,
Where the past of LSU linger in the damp Louisiana air—where the beer is cold, the neon hums like a hornet’s nest, and the pizza is pure, ungovernable delishiousness.
The Pastime—nostalgic in name, but built on something rawer. Here, hunger meets grease, cheese, and heat, no pretense required.
Born in the 1920s as a humble grocery, it fed laborers craving hot, fast, and cheap. By 1945, booze arrived, and The Pastime thrived just beyond LSU’s Prohibition zone, drawing students and faculty alike. The law changed, but the legend endured.
Pizza is not an afterthought here.
It is the thought.
Forget the thick, doughy, over-hyped monstrosities you get in tourist traps.
The Pastime’s pizza is thin, crispy, and cooked like they mean it—a no-nonsense testament to the beauty of excess, built for survival rather than spectacle. Take the Creole Pizza here, for example. A creation so inherently Southern it could win a parish election on name recognition alone. Their homemade spicy red sauce is a warning shot—bold, unapologetic, and perfectly paired with a reckless heap of Gulf shrimp, fresh-cut red onions, okra, homegrown diced tomatoes, and a righteous blend of cheeses.
And yet, you do it anyway. Because when that first bite hits—when the shrimp, the sauce, the cheese, and the crunch of that perfect crust collide in a symphony of excess—you remember why places like this exist.
The Pastime is an equal-opportunity enabler.
It doesn’t give a damn if you’re a broke college kid, a washed-up gambler, or a Hollywood A-lister slumming it in the Deep South. Angelina Jolie, Billy Bob Thornton, Matthew McConaughey—hell, even Willie Nelson has pulled up a chair here. LSU legends, from Billy Cannon to Simone Augustus, have eaten here. Every Louisiana politician worth their salt—Edwin Edwards, Buddy Roemer, a long line of sheriffs, judges, and senators—has sat in these booths, elbow-deep in marinara, making backroom deals over thin crust and cold beer.
Because this is where it happens. The kind of place where fortunes change, where ideas are born, where decisions are made in the hazy euphoria of one too many slices and the promise of another round.
There’s no Michelin star here. No farm-to-table nonsense,
No gimmicks, no branding nonsense—just The Pastime, standing for nearly a century because people keep coming back. Not just for nostalgia, but for the food, the stories, and the comfort of things that never change.
If you’re in Baton Rouge, order the pizza. Extra napkins. Cold beer. No regrets.
And when you wake up the next morning—groggy, stuffed, and wondering if it was a dream—you’ll know it wasn’t.
The Pastime isn’t just a restaurant. It’s an LSU institution.
