Who remembers when you could go to Camelia Grill or Cafe Du Monde without a mile long line

Locals don’t wait in line. The line is for takeout. CDM doesn’t have servers on staff. The ones you see do it independently for tips.

It's because so many of our places have been featured on the Food Network, Cooking Channel or Travel Channel.

May well be the ruination of New Orleans.

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Of idiot tourists?

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They are idiots if they went to New Orleans for a vacation.

Morning Call in Metairie always had a line outside the door

I remember going to Cafe Du Monde back in the early 70’s. Depending on seasons and time of day even back then they had long lines of tourists.

We completely wrote off getting anywhere near during the mardi gras season. Those times the line was so long you’d show up at breakfast time and be served by 1pm.

It was probably 2012 but a friend and I overstayed in bourbon street and found our way to Cafe Du Monde. I think it was 5 or 6 in the morning. The sun was just coming up and we waited no time. Got in and ordered beignets and coffee… such a sweet relief to the night we just had.

Just go grab a table, there’s no real line

Riverwalk location never has a wait either.

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I remember when Camelia Grill used to be much better, though.

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The last time I was in Camelia Grill I found a spot that had me looking down the length of the kitchen and saw several rats scurrying across the floor and popping in and out from under the appliances as the cooks and waiters walked around doing their work.

I left and haven't been back since.

Friend,

There once was a Brazilian female who worked at Cafe Du Monde who took quite the fancy to me. Mother and I first met her during the Mardi Gras season in 2010. We had watched one of those all female mega krewes on a Thursday or Friday night in front of the Boston Club. On a whim, Mother said, “We have not been to Cafe Du Monde in some time. We shall sit and enjoy some beignets and conversation. Hurry now.”

I was happy to go. There is not a better place in America to sit and watch the crowds meander in parallel with the Mississippi. Tonya and Dorise were still the dynamic duo in those days and they had camped near the Decatur Street entrance to the cafe. They were recreating a rendition of Hallelujah that still fills my spirit with joy. The laughter and conversations of the large outdoor sitting area provided a harmonious background interference and electricity. The occasional horn and a person yelling down the street punctuated the air with sforzando. Even our friend Robert Harris, a well known Quarter trombonist had pulled up a seat to take in that slice of heaven.

We had ordered four orders of beignets, which at that time, were about $1.50 (did you know in my recent Houstonian travels, a Vietnamese cafe was selling beignets for $8 an order! I asked the cashier if those beignets came with truffles on top, and he only returned a confused gaze to me). To drink Mother chose coffee and I chose two glasses of the finest tap water in the world and a Borden’s chocolate milk. I always ask for an extra glass because I cannot bear the thought of drinking out of cardboard.

Our Brazilian waitress quickly brought the order to us. Mother was in the middle of a story about her Great Aunt’s Mardi Gras party, when Mother was just a young girl, when our waitress interrupted her.

“Hello, my name is Juliana.” She smiled brightly. It was obviously a smile that had been assisted by the work of an orthodontist. She was White Brazilian and once told me her skin was only slightly whiter than mine because her family was pure Portuguese. Her eyes were blue and her hair dark brown and stretched a quarter of the way down her slim 5’5” frame. She wore the traditional uniform of a server at Cafe Du Monde: supremely tailored black pants with a green apron tied to the waist, a white button up shirt with a black bowtie, and a paper ship shaped hat.

“Hello, Juliana. I was just telling my son, TulaneLSU, about Aunt Catherine’s Mardi Gras party in 1963. You are welcome to sit with us if you are inclined to hearing about the most exquisite king cake I have ever had.”

“I am sorry, but I cannot,” she replied. “I have several other tables and if my boss sees me sitting, I may lose the employment for my visa. But I would like to hear the story later if you would like to tell me. And I do not know if it is okay for me to ask, but may I have your phone number so I can telephone to you?”

She was looking at me. Never underestimate the embarrassment a son feels when a girl propositions him in front of his mother. My face filled with crimson. I was caught off guard, and I stuttered, “No, no, I do not think. No, I know that would not be good.”

The rest of our night at Cafe Du Monde was uncomfortable for me. I felt like at all times I had a pair of eyes inspecting and ogling me. When we were leaving, the young lady, probably 21 or 22, handed me her phone number and bashfully said, “Please call me.”

I did what any self-respecting son would do when a girl gives him her number – I ripped it in half and put it in the nearest receptacle. Some of the posters on the OT likely would have considered lascivious acts with her and would have reduced the worth of her being to a simple number between one and ten. For me, though, such forwardness was incompatible with a romantic relationship. As beautiful as her physical appearance may have been, how could I ever tell the story of how we first me? “She approached me at Cafe Du Monde and asked for my number.” It could never work.

Mother folded a twenty dollar bill and placed it in Tonya and Dorise’s tip jar. It still amazes me that there are people in this world who will stop and enjoy a musician’s music, their very livelihood, and refuse to give a worthy payment for their talent. Stiffing a musician, who has spent her life refining her talent, practicing and practicing thousands of hours to make something beautiful for you, is a more monstrous crime to me than stiffing a waiter after excellent service.

From time to time over the next few months, I would walk by Cafe Du Monde hoping to see Juliana, hoping that somehow the clock could be unwound and she would let me introduce myself to her and ask her for her number. But time is not a circle, and as Donnie Emerson sang in Dreamin’ Wild “looking back on how it was / will it ever be the same?”

One time Juliana saw me taking an evening walk along Decatur. She ran to me and asked me to sit at a table she had just cleaned. I saw that there was a line of people waiting for a table, even then in 2010. “Juliana, no. I cannot see you and I will never skip a line. Lines are always to be respected, just as proper courting etiquette is. The boundary between civilized and uncivilized is the line. Always, always honor it.”

These words made her cry. I apologized and walked to the alley behind CDM where the takeout line is. There was no wait and I walked away with a bag of hot fried dough and sugar to sit along the riverfront and count the ships as they passed.

That same takeout line was crawling with at least 50 people this past weekend. The 110 degree heat index did not deter them or the people in line for a table, a line that stretched into Washington Artillery Park. It was almost noon. Who waits in line for 30 minutes for a beignet? Who eats beignets when the heat index is over 100?

Clearly, these people are tourists, followers who Google “Things to do in….” Their agendas dictated by others, whose agendas were dictated by those before them, they live for perceived authenticity, often because their own lives lack it. It is unnaturally New Orleanian to wait in a line on scorching, unshaded concrete and slate to eat fried dough. The experience of Cafe Du Monde is the people watching. It is not the photo you take or the beignet itself.

Nonetheless, I thank them for coming to our dear city. The ebb and flow of the popularity for some of New Orleans’s dearest traditions are in the flow position now. An example? I recently waited in line for 30 minutes to buy a $7.50 sno-ball from Hansen’s two weeks ago. When at Hansen’s, I always choose the sno-ball that comes in the biggest reusable Mardi Gras cup. Just in April of this year, the same sno-ball was $5.50! I guess if the tourists keep coming, why would you not raise the price? As for me, I will start frequenting Droopy’s in Harahan, who makes a superior fine shaved snowball at 50% the cost and hardly ever a wait.



As for Camellia Grill, I have only visited it two or three times. Never have I enjoyed it. It is not distinctly New Orleans. It serves a subpar burger and fries. Never have I waited for a table there nor would I ever wait. I probably will never eat there again unless pressed into an awkward spot.

Yours,
TulaneLSU