Menu
With the desire to create something new and exciting to revitalize the downtown Monroe area, Jay Howell expertly laid the plans for Restaurant Cotton and opened its doors in 2008.
With his innovative takes on Southern Delta cuisine and a beautiful building, the rest, as they say, is history. As an homage to our building’s past, Cotton successfully blends an early 1900s look and feel with modern-day comfort food.
Visitors enjoy our one-of-a-kind atmosphere and our rich history, as well as our picturesque view of the Ouachita River and our creative spin on Southern comfort cuisine. Once upon a time, this building was actually a hub for cotton and bourbon transportation, hence our restaurant’s industrious namesake.
Visitors enjoy our one-of-a-kind atmosphere and our rich history, as well as our picturesque view of the Ouachita River and our creative spin on Southern comfort cuisine. Once upon a time, this building was actually a hub for cotton and bourbon transportation, hence our restaurant’s industrious namesake.
When Prohibition caused most states in the Deep South to ban the sale of alcoholic beverages in the late 19th and early 20th century, savvy businessmen found legal ways around that to supply a demand. Mail order sales of liquor were not prohibited, and Jacob Bloch was said to have launched the first mail-order liquor dealership in downtown Monroe, out of you guessed it, the same building that Restaurant Cotton now occupies at 101 North Grand Street.
The J.S. Bloch Building was erected in 1893 at the corner of Desiard Street and North Grand Street. The building housed a bar for over-the-counter sales, as well as a saloon in its heyday. Bloch’s wholesale mail-order catalogs sold liquor in both glass and ceramic bottles, in sizes ranging from a gallon to a pint. Long after Bloch closed his mail-order liquor business, the historic building was used as a general store, a cafeteria, a bookstore, and even as a lively cotton exchange, hence our restaurant’s moniker today.
