Café du Monde

Infobox Restaurant
name = Café du Monde

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image_width = 300px
image_caption = Café du Monde is open 24 hours a day
established =1862
current-owner = Fernandez Family
head-chef =
food-type =Coffee Shop
dress-code =Casual
rating =
street-address = 1039 Decatur Street
city = New Orleans
state = Louisiana
zip = 70116
country =United States
seating-capacity =
reservations =
website = [http://www.cafedumonde.com/main.html Cafedumonde.com] Café du Monde is a coffee shop on Decatur Street in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is best known for its café au lait and its French-style beignets. In the New Orleans style, the coffee is blended with chicory.

The location at the upper end of the French Market was established in 1862. For over a century it was one of two similar coffee and beignets places in the market, the other being Morning Call, established in 1870 moved out of the Old French Market in 1974 to the suburb of Metairie, Louisiana [http://www.morningcallcoffeestand.com/html/history.html] .

Starting in the late 1980s, Café du Monde opened up additional locations in shopping malls. While it once expanded as far away as Atlanta, Georgia, in recent years the company has restricted its operation to the greater New Orleans metro area. Café du Monde locations can also be found throughout Japan.

It is open 24 hours, 7 days a week, except for Christmas Day (and days when "the occasional hurricane passes too close to New Orleans," according to the shop's web site), and is patronized by both locals and visitors. Due to Hurricane Katrina, the shop closed at midnight on August 27, 2005. Although it suffered only minor damage, it remained closed for nearly two months. Owners took advantage of the low traffic time afterwards to refurbish and the kitchen. The French Quarter location re-opened on October 19, 2005 to national media attention. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-10-19-katrina-beignets_x.htm] [http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/18/business.story/index.html]

In Popular Culture

Café du Monde has appeared in multiple fictional depictions of the city including the "Dave Robicheaux" series of novels by James Lee Burke, and novels by John Connolly, Poppy Z. Brite, and Nancy A. Collins. The café is featured in two scenes in the movie "Runaway Jury". In the first scene characters played by Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz meet inside during a busy lunch hour, while in the second scene Gene Hackman and John Cusack's characters meet close by. The business is also immortalized in the Jimmy Buffett song, "The Wino and I Know". [http://music.yahoo.com/Jimmy-Buffett/The-Wino-And-I-Know/lyrics/487083]

External links

* [http://www.cafedumonde.com/main.html Cafedumonde.com]