Cafe Du Monde
The stand was established in the French Market in 1862 and the menu still runs to coffee, beignets, milk and orange juice.1
Why go
The building was the Butcher's Hall, put up in 1813 to replace a market a hurricane took down the year before.1 The coffee is dark roast cut with chicory and served black or au lait, which means half hot milk.1 Hubert Fernandez bought the stand in May 1942 from Fred Koeniger, and his family still runs it.1 Iced coffee and soft drinks arrived in 1988, which is the last thing the menu did.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: beignets and a cafe au lait. The family's own description is
square French-style doughnuts, lavishly covered with powdered sugar.
1 - Avoid: treating the queue as a reason to leave. The Infatuation:
standing in the long, unorganized line is worth it.
2
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation, 30 January 2025:
The beignets are always hot, generously caked in powdered sugar, and make for the most satisfying snack in between all your other eating plans.
2 - The Infatuation, on the crowd, same review:
accept the fact that you're going to show up in the background of someone else's vacation photos.
2
Good to know
- Which door. This is the original stand at 800 Decatur St in the French Market. The family runs other shops around the metro, including one in City Park that The Infatuation reviews separately, and nothing here is about those.1
- Timing: 7:15am to 11pm Sunday through Thursday, to midnight Friday and Saturday. The stand
closes only on Christmas Day and on the day an occasional Hurricane passes too close to New Orleans.
1 - Booking: none. You find a table yourself.
- Hygiene: not established. New Orleans publishes no inspection register this project reads.
Verdict
should-visit — The family's own history page is unusually specific. The stand has been in the French Market since 1862, the Fernandez family bought it in May 1942, and the menu still runs to five things plus the iced coffee they added in 1988. The Infatuation's 2025 review concedes the tourist problem in its own words and still says the line is worth standing in. That is enough for a rung above listed and not enough for the top one, because no bylined critic has written about the cooking beyond the beignets being hot.