Image by K. Keller
When planning a trip to New Orleans, everyone and their dog will tell you the same thing: You MUST visit the famous Cafe Du Monde. It seems like a non-negotiable activity, no matter who you ask.
Years before I traveled to New Orleans I had met a couple of businessmen from Texas. When I told them about my intention to one day visit the Big Easy they gave me a twenty-dollar bill and wrote, "Cafe Du Monde" on the edge of the bill. They told me to hang onto the money and spend it when I eventually got there.
Fast forward to 2019 and I had finally arrived.
Arriving at the famous Cafe Du Monde was exactly how I pictured it would be. After reading about it online and Ubering past it a bunch of times during my stay, I knew what to expect but it was still a little surreal to be there, considering I'd hung onto the twenty-dollar bill for years.
There is a lot of hype built up around this spot.
It’s always packed FULL of people to the point where I’m not sure how they even keep up with the pace of service nor the cleaning of tables. It’s also open 24 hours a day, seven days a week (outside of the pandemic).
For those of you who don’t know, Cafe Du Monde is known for the Beignet - pronounced ben-yay - which is pretty much a chunk of deep-fried dough smothered in inch-thick powdered sugar. It is best enjoyed with a cup of coffee.
The pastry is a historical New Orleans thing and you should definitely eat one if you visit. Just to say you did.
My travel partner and I decided to drop into the cafe on our very last full day in the city. We found a table for two in the back and plopped ourselves there, pondering how long it would take to be served in a place this busy.
Remarkably quickly, a server approached immediately and took our order. Each of us ordered our own Beignets and a coffee. Today would be my treat.
The pastries arrived at our table and I couldn’t believe the moment was finally here. I also couldn’t believe there were THREE mounds of fried dough on each plate. For $2.75 per order I thought for sure we’d each get just one.
After a mini photoshoot of this karmic moment, I dove into those sweet suckers as eagerly as I knew how to eat a pastry stacked with sugar.
It was a tantalizing sugar high. By the time you’re finished eating them and drinking a cup of coffee, your arteries are clogged and you’ve got the jitters. But it’s SO worth it.
Now that I’ve had the full Cafe Du Monde experience I know the rules.
Here they are in no particular order:
- Don’t wear black.
- Don’t visit on a windy day.
- Don’t sit downwind of others eating Beignets.
The cafe offers covered outdoor seating and if you visit on a windy day like we did, the entire place is one big tornado of powdered sugar, scattering in every direction. It was actually hilarious and a lot of innocent bystanders were affected.
And yes, I wore a black dress.
Image by K. Keller
Once we finished our treats and coffees it was time to pay the check.
I won’t lie, I’d held onto that twenty-dollar bill for so long that I actually considered keeping it for memory’s sake, and paying with some other money. But it was the destiny of my twenty-dollar bill to finish off the story.
Our check was $12.75. I handed our server the bill with “Cafe Du Monde” written on the edge and told her to keep the change.
Does it make me weird if I admit that I choked up and tears welled in my eyes, knowing that my keepsake twenty had just made its way back into regular circulation, after being mine for so long?
It wasn’t unique anymore and the full circle story had come to an end.
Image by K. Keller
I would secretly love for this story to go viral just to see if and where that twenty-dollar bill turns up. It’s so easily recognizable because of the writing on the edge and in my mind it’s kind of like a message in a bottle:
Throw it out into the universe and wonder where it’s going to end up.
It ended up in my hands several years ago.
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