Outside, wooden posts prop up an overhang that runs the length of the building, permanent wooden benches underneath with the odd stump here and there to serve as beer rest. An amazingly ancient sign commands one of the exterior walls, reading “Vaughan’s Restaurant Po-Boys Daily Specials Seafood,” a remnant of a family business that once operated a few blocks away. The windows, which of course look to be original, feature a ring of red and green transparent glass panes that look about as old as time.
The layout inside almost feels like stadium seating at a movie theater, the lowest level serving as home to a collection of short tables and chairs, the upper level hosting the bar itself. A low ceiling and wooden railings between the two partitions only accentuates the feeling of staring up at the bar as it exists on some kind of dive bar altar. Maybe it does. Brick steps divide the two levels, almost giving off the feeling that the lowest area was once outside, since reclaimed by the bar to provide a little extra indoor seating.
Taking that one half-step up provides access to a bar that again looks like it’s probably original, a short curving wood and metal contraption that has hosted drunks for about a decade or seven. The liquor bottles are stacked high just below a line of framed, ancient photos that can be found here and on almost every other vertical surface within Vaughan’s. The visual stimulation is endless, old signs, vintage clocks, murals and randomness of every variety mixed in with the photos.