Cafe du Monde
Busy Saturday a.m. at Cafe du Monde
Cafe du Monde
800 Decatur St., New Orleans, LA
Tourist numbers may be off in New Orleans, but Cafe du Monde was still packed up with a 10-minute line outside on a warm Saturday morning. Once I had a table, my task was still only half over, as I had to entice a waitress to clearing the previous occupant’s sticky dishes and wipe the coating of powdered sugar off of the table. Once that was completed and my order was in, however, my experience was completely enjoyable. The bustling of tourists, performance artists, horse-drawn carriages, traffic…makes for a lively scene.
The open-air coffee shop located on Decatur Street right across from St. Louis Cathedral has been a New Orleans staple for almost 150 years. The menu is simple: beignets and coffee. For those unfortunate enough not to know, a beignet is a French doughnut, dredged and drowned in powdered sugar. The effect is a hot pillow of deliciousness. The classic coffee order is cafe au lait, which is half coffee and half hot milk. It is served New Orleans-style, with a shake of chicory in the mix, which intensifies the bitterness of the coffee.
It may be a pain to get a table, and the service you get from the overworked waitstaff can be straight-up lousy, but the scene is so pleasant and the offerings so tasty, it is always worth it. Plus it’s cheap: $4 for an order of 3 beignets and a coffee, including tax. There’s a takeout window for those who lack patience, but then you might as well be ordering a funnel cake from the state fair. Sit down, relax, and soak in the atmosphere!
Bryan Fryklund
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