Zee Zees Brings Big Bites and Cocktails to Perkins Road

A shrimp po-boy arrives piled high enough to require a little strategy. At Zee Zees, the shrimp are generously packed into soft Leidenheimer bread, making this Perkins Road stop a useful answer when a plain sandwich simply will not do.

The restaurant and bar sits near Baton Rouge’s familiar overpass area, in a location distinct from the earlier Zee Zees site across the street. It has the broad appetite of a neighborhood hangout: come in for a quick bite, settle into a booth for dinner, or make an evening of cocktails and shareable snacks with friends.

The menu travels comfortably through burgers, po-boys, sandwiches, wings, fries, nachos, flatbreads and pasta. That range gives a table room to order in different directions without anyone having to compromise too much.

Pizza eggrolls are among the items people tend to remember. They have the playful, slightly over-the-top spirit that works especially well with a round of drinks: familiar pizza flavors, folded into something crisp and easy to pass around the table.

Pizza beignets take the same pleasure in making a Louisiana-adjacent favorite do a different job. They have shown up alongside drinks and other appetizers in sampler-style orders, which sounds like a sensible way to approach a menu full of tempting detours.

Chicken cracklins and Nashville hot cheese curds continue the fried-appetizer theme. The cheese curds are best imagined in the classic fried-cheese sweet spot—crisp on the outside, warm and gooey at the center—with Nashville heat bringing a little extra spark.

Nachos are a natural group order here, while loaded fries can easily become more than a side dish. Curly fries also appear with burgers, and onion strings offer another crunchy option when the table wants something to nibble between sips.

The Dynamite burger is not built for subtlety. It layers a fried egg, maple-peppered bacon, aged cheddar, jalapeño, curly fries and secret sauce onto one burger, turning a casual lunch choice into a full-on stack.

A Juicy Lucy is another burger worth watching for, and burger specials may occasionally add another option to the board. Menu availability can change, but Zee Zees clearly has a fondness for burgers that arrive with more going on than the usual lettuce-and-tomato routine.

For a less towering route, the sandwich list includes a turkey sandwich, cheesesteak and Cubano. The Cubano is pressed and served warm, with a flaky crust on the bread that gives it a nice contrast to the filling.

The po-boy may be the most direct route to a hearty Louisiana-style meal, but Zee Zees does not stop at sandwiches. The Zee-Molina pasta brings shrimp together with a delicate sauce, a quieter choice amid all the fries, wings and fried appetizers.

A cheese flatbread can serve as a small meal beside a cocktail or help fill out a table that has already ordered a few starters. Chicken tenders and lemon-pepper wings are also in the mix, particularly useful for a group that wants straightforward bar food alongside the more unusual items.

This is the sort of menu where ordering individually still encourages sampling. One person can take on the Dynamite burger while somebody else goes for the po-boy, and the middle of the table can fill up with eggrolls, nachos or cheese curds.

Beer comes bottled and on draft, and the bar also serves wine and cocktails. Moscato is one wine option, but martinis are an especially visible part of the drink conversation here.

Espresso martinis have a coffee-forward profile and make sense with a pre-concert bite or an early round of appetizers. Coffee espresso versions and flavored lemon drops give the menu more than one route for people who prefer their cocktail a little sweet, a little bright, or both.

Blueberry is among the lemon-drop flavors. Pairing a citrusy drink with a salty snack basket is not a complicated plan, but Zee Zees supplies enough choices to keep that plan interesting for a while.

Inside, the dining room and bar carry a cool, eclectic pop-art look. Booth seating gives dinner groups a comfortable base camp before the evening gets more animated.

The outdoor patio has a more tucked-away, speakeasy-like mood—not a formal speakeasy, but a separate setting from the brighter pop-art interior. It is a good change of scene for a drink and flatbread or a slower round of conversation.

Earlier in the evening, the room can be comparatively quiet; later on, the energy picks up and the sound level can rise. Conversation is still possible, but this is a social place with a nightlife streak, not a hushed dining room. On selected evenings, a DJ may add to the momentum.

Zee Zees works for several versions of the same plan: meet a friend for a cocktail, gather a few people around nachos and wings, stop for food before a concert, or linger over dinner until the room gets busier. Friendly, quick service and menu guidance help when the table is trying to decide between another appetizer and one more drink.

Typical spending falls in a moderate range, roughly $10 to $30 per person depending on how far the order goes into cocktails and shareables. There are free lot and street-parking options, though finding a spot can sometimes take a little patience.

For a meal that starts with pizza eggrolls and ends wherever the martini list leads, the mix of hearty food, booths, patio seating and Perkins Road bustle is a pretty agreeable setup.