Café Du Monde, New Orleans
Everyone in a city has that one spot that they claim as their own.
People have been putting powdered sugar on clothes and tables at Café Du Monde in New Orleans since before the Civil War.
There haven’t been many changes to the food or the wait times, but the French Quarter wouldn’t be the same without it.
Here are some interesting facts about this New Orleans landmark that will never go out of style.
In 1942, the Fernandez family bought the café.
In May 1942, Hubert Fernandez bought Café Du Monde from Fred Koeniger. At the same time, he ran the Fernandez Wine Cellar across the street in the Pontalba Apartment building.
In 1972, the family made the choice to close the Wine Cellar and focus on the coffee shop full-time. The Fernandez family has run the business for three generations, making sure that the beignets taste the same as they did many years ago.
Café Du Monde is open almost all the time.
This place never closes, so you can get a beignet whenever you want—even at 3 a.m., noon, or dinnertime—except on December 25 and during big hurricanes that threaten the city.
The café closed at midnight on August 27, 2005, for Hurricane Katrina. It didn’t return until October 19, 2005, almost two months later, even though it wasn’t badly damaged.
They fixed up the kitchens and dining areas while they were on this forced holiday. Over 100 news sources, including ABC’s Good Morning America, talked about the reopening as a sign that New Orleans was coming back to life.
After the terrible storm, a sign that said “Beignets Are Back!” became a symbol of the city’s recovery.
The food hasn’t changed much in more than 160 years.
They don’t believe in having too many items on the table; they only do a few things really well.
Dark-roasted coffee with chicory (black or with milk), beignets, white and chocolate milk, hot chocolate, and fresh-squeezed orange juice are the only things on the menu.
In 1988, they added iced coffee and soft drinks, which was the only big change to the menu.
Some Café Du Monde stores were in Japan.
Business people from Japan fell in love with New Orleans after the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition and wanted to take it home with them.
In 1989, The Duskin Company made it official, and in 1990, they opened their first stores in Japan.
They had 32 stores all over Japan, in places like Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, at their busiest.
The French Quarter look and the green and white colour scheme were kept by these Japanese cafés, but seasonal treats and beignets you couldn’t get in New Orleans gave them their own unique style.
One great spot was in Kyoto Station, where you could sit on a rooftop with a view of the futuristic building’s main hall.
The relationship ended on March 31, 2018, when Duskin closed all of their remaining stores.
Because of the Civil War, New Orleans had to have chicory coffee.
Coffee supplies to Café Du Monde stopped because of Union naval blockades during the Civil War. This is how the coffee there tastes now.
In New Orleans, people started adding roasted chicory root (from the endive plant) to their coffee to make it last longer.
Chicory doesn’t have any caffeine in it, but it gives coffee a chocolatey, woodsy flavour that goes really well with strong coffee.
So that the classic flavour stays the same, the café gets its chicory from France, from a company called Leroux.
When you mix half-and-half with hot milk to make café au lait, you get a taste that you can’t get anywhere else.
In 1986, beignets were named Louisiana’s official state doughnut.
Sugar-covered squares of fried dough have been around for a long time. Fries were first brought to Louisiana in the 1700s by French farmers and Acadians, who later became known as Cajuns.
For many years, Café Du Monde just called them “doughnuts.” In 1958, they changed the name to “beignets” to honour their French roots. Louisiana made it official in 1986 by calling beignets the state doughnut.
These sweet treats have been around for a long time. Some food historians say they come from scriblita, which was fried dough in animal fat in ancient Rome. Celtic “bigne” means “to raise” and is also the French word for “fritter.” This is where the word “beignet” comes from.
There are three beignets in every order today. They are always hot and have way too much powdered sugar on them.
A strange link was made between Vietnamese refugees and Café Du Monde.
In the 1970s, when the Vietnam War ended, a lot of Vietnamese people fled to New Orleans. The weather, wetlands, and fishing business made them miss their home country.
They began working at Café Du Monde in the 1970s and 1980s. It was there that they realised the chicory coffee tasted like the Vietnamese coffee they were used to.
They began making coffee with condensed milk and sending it to family and friends all over the country.
When the people in charge of the café saw this trend, they began selling their coffee in Vietnamese grocery shops all over the country.
All over the United States, Café Du Monde coffee is now the best Vietnamese iced coffee.
You can now find Café Du Monde in nine places in and around New Orleans.
There was only one Café Du Monde in the French Quarter for 123 years.
Then, in 1985, they opened a second store in the Esplanade Mall.
Today, you can get a beignet in nine places around the New Orleans area: the original is in the French Market, and there are also shops at Riverwalk Marketplace, Lakeside Mall, Oakwood Mall, Veterans Boulevard, Mandeville, Covington, City Park, and the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
If you want to make their coffee and beignet mix at home, you can also order it online.
