The Carousel Bar Needed a New Top. Here’s How We Built It.
Some bars are just bars. The Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone, 214 Royal Street in New Orleans, is not one of them. It has been turning since 1949, and people come from all over the world to take a ride. The top of that bar isn’t a surface. It’s part of the reason people come.
So when the top from the original fabricator stopped holding up, the stakes were clear. The Monteleone called us.
I’ve seen this before
I built tops the old way for years. I watched those wooden cores fail. That’s why I started 3 Spark.
So I know what a top that isn’t holding up looks like: wear, stains, open joints. On an everyday bar, that’s a headache. On a landmark that guests photograph from every angle, it’s a problem that can’t wait. The hotel needed somebody to answer the phone, show up with a plan, and get it right.
That’s the part we take personally. When a client calls with a problem, the problem becomes ours.
Step one: move fast
We answered quickly, came back with a clear plan, and had a crew ready to go. No drawn-out back and forth. A working hotel bar needs straight answers, and that’s what we gave them.
A custom edge, drawn for this bar alone
We didn’t pull a stock trim off the shelf. We drew an edge profile for the Carousel Bar, and it isn’t reused on other projects.
Why fuss over an edge? Because on a bar people lean on all day, the edge is the part everyone touches. It sets how heavy or light the bar reads from across the room, how the light rolls off it at night, and how it feels under a forearm on the third round. A stock trim is drawn for the average bar. This one was drawn for this bar.
We cut the profile tooling on our CNC, then shaped and hand-finished the segments in the shop before they ever went to New Orleans.
A redesigned surface, in real zinc
We redesigned the surface in zinc. We use deposition to apply thin coats of material in a controlled manner to build up the surface, which lets us take on complex curves and custom edge profiles. The result is real metal with real depth: it catches the Carousel’s lights, it warms up under the bulbs, and it reads like an object, not a laminate.
This is where design and technical know-how have to meet. Plenty of shops can make something look good on day one. The job is making something that still looks good after years of glasses, elbows, and spilled Sazeracs.
Working around a working hotel
A landmark hotel bar doesn’t stop for a contractor. We planned the job around the hotel’s calendar, installed the new segments on site, and delivered on time. The new zinc top was completed in August 2026.
What it adds up to
Our clients’ problems come first. Smart design plus technical know-how gets you a top that’s made for the bar, instead of a bar forced to fit somebody’s trim. That’s what we do: custom objects, not off-the-shelf trims.
The way I see it, we give the spark to our clients, and they pass it on to their guests. At the Carousel Bar, you can see it every time the room lights up and the bar starts to turn.
Planning a bar that has to live up to its history?
Or living with a top that isn’t holding up? Reach out to me. Let’s talk about your project.
Request finish samples Send us your drawing
See the full project: Project Brief: Hotel Monteleone
Hero photo: Josh Lloyd Media.