Step into the vibrant heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, where a beloved tradition has welcomed visitors and locals alike for over 160 years. Cafe Du Monde, established in 1862, isn’t just any coffee shop; it’s a living piece of American history, operating 24/7, year-round, come rain or shine. This iconic New Orleans landmark serves its famous chicory coffee and warm, sugar-dusted beignets, offering a taste of the city’s rich culture and a moment of sweet comfort that has become a staple for generations.
What makes Cafe Du Monde so special isn’t just its delicious treats; it’s the enduring spirit of a family business that has poured its heart into every cup and beignet for decades. From its humble beginnings as a coffee stand in the historic French Market, this unique establishment has witnessed history unfold, adapting and thriving while preserving the authentic New Orleans experience. It’s a place where spending just a few dollars can offer an experience as rich as any high-priced jazz brunch, embodying the resilience and welcoming atmosphere that defines this incredible city and its people.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: And we returned to our American Stories. In the heart of New Orleans, Louisiana—by the way, I got married in that beautiful city—is a long-standing tradition in the form of a coffee shop. If you’re familiar with New Orleans, you know, of course, we’re talking about Cafe Dumont. The original Cafe Dumont was established as a coffee stand in 1862 and has since remained open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with the exception of Christmas Day or the occasional hurricane. Here is Emily Ager with the story of this famous coffee shop, and this one we’re doing on location, so you will have to be dealing with the sounds and the feel of being in Cafe Dumont.
00:00:56
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people will pay some good money to go to a jazz bronchpad. You can come here and spend $3.75 and get just as good of an experience, in my opinion.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: So, I guess it’s.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Kind of a complicated answer about when I started working here. My mom’s grandfather bought the business in 1942, so partly I’ve been involved since I was born. Both my parents work here, and my brother and my husband now; so, been around it my whole life. So, what we’re sitting here in right now is formally called the French Market. Before it was the French Market, it was actually a meat market, and a mile of it was all open market. Obviously, it’s very warm, so that couldn’t last for a while, and the meat market slowly turned into closer to what it is at the end of the French Market building, which is like little stands that people would buy and vegetable, you know, produce, meat, arts, crafts. We have a lot of different cultures kind of welded together here in New Orleans, so it’s a lot of different arts and crafts that people sell in the market. And then they started to, you know, turn into more of like the formal retail stores in like the 1960s. So, Kappey Deman was originally started in 1862, and we were one of the little coffee stamps. So, Capit Deman is French for “coffee of the world,” and it was the coffee served in the 1800s, and we’ve served it since then. The people that built this building, that’s the Spanish, and then the French came shortly after this Manash.
00:02:37
Speaker 3: Which was why we get those melds of.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: Culture here. And the French, specifically the Akkadians, brought the Benne over. You know, everybody always asked about our coffee and chickory blend. That blend is due to the world work. So, coffee was really hard to ship over, especially the French blend type coffee. And so they started blending chickory, which comes from the root of an endox plant, and they started blending the chickory to add in because it has a similar coffee taste, but it’s not coffee, so it was kind of a substitute to give it that coffee taste while kind of halfing the coffee. And now it’s a lot of people’s preference, mine included. People love the coffee chickery taste. So, we started with the coffee, and they would have bread served with the coffee. Coffee, in New Orleans, is an all-day, everyday thing. We start and end our day with coffee, and so it just kind of turned into the breads and stuff turned into the vegnet when the French brought it over, and it’s now, I would say, the vignet is the staple of New Orleans. So, all of our venues are handmade, and as soon as they’re made, they get fried, so we never, we never refrigerate or freeze.
00:03:56
Speaker 3: Everything is made on the spot.
00:03:58
Speaker 2: And of course, it’s the only food item that we sell, so we’re just constantly making it. That’s all we do all day long, is make begnets. So, the begnet started—I couldn’t even give you an exact age. I want to say it was the early 1900s, and it’s said that of coffee and begnets has just become the smart thing to do in New Orleans.
00:04:18
Speaker 3: And obviously, it’s a very simple food.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: It’s fried dough with powdered sugar on top, and I think the environment brings a lot of what makes it great, but also that we handmake it every day, and it’s fresh and hot and comforting. This wasn’t probably the best place for business if you’d asked somebody back in the 1800s before, when the river wasn’t managed by engineers, and it’s, you know, our Core of Engineers here in New Orleans. Arise and fall of it was pretty steady. So, back in the 1800s, when they built this building,
00:04:53
Speaker 3: If you would have.
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Told them that this is like the epicenter of tourism, they would.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: Have probably discourage that strong point.
00:05:02
Speaker 2: But with Jackson Square and the cathedral obviously there, you know, we have multiple things that are fun to see when you come to New Orleans. I think this is probably what we’re best known for us is right, right in the heart of the French Quarter, right here where we are. I feel like we just, we give an atmosphere that’s nice to come to. We take care of our customers. We truly, we truly like to see, you know, people’s first experience with beignettes and coffee. Love to see people, you know, get their first beignet. It’s exciting for us. So, I think the magic isn’t lost on us, and so we’re excited, and I think it gives an exciting place to come to.
00:05:46
Speaker 3: You know. Obviously, we’ve put a lot of hard work.
00:05:48
Speaker 2: A lot of our family truly cares about the business and all of our employees, so it’s, it’s been a lot of hard work. But also, I think we’re very lucky and fortunate that, you know, people enjoy coming here, and we’re able to recover from them. You know, many things that do happen in our city that make it hard. We’re, we’re look to a lot. When everybody closes after a hurricane. You know, when, when are we opening back up? When is the city going to get started? And we don’t take that responsibility lightly.
00:06:20
Speaker 3: It means a lot to us.
00:06:22
Speaker 2: So, I would love to say that, you know, we did that solo, but that’s definitely not true. You know, it’s those guys right there on the street playing music and all these people in here bringing, you know, they’re different, different parts of themselves. Hyping New Orleans just makes people feel welcome. We have that culture here that kind of welcomes everybody, and that has everything to do with the city itself. We definitely can ad take the credit for that, but we’re happy to be a part of it. Because we’re only closed on Christmas Day, we become a lot of people’s holiday traditions. You know, people come every year from our to girl, and they bring that next group of people that’s ready to come to the city. Thanksgiving is a huge day for us. People are in town. They want to bring their family from all over the world and have them come experience Beignet’s, and that’s so cool to us, you know, we love seeing that. I think just being here for so long has given us.
00:07:18
Speaker 3: The opportunity to see that.
00:07:21
Speaker 2: There was a woman who was here who got displaced after Katrina and came back recently, and I was talking to her while she was winning at line, and she was saying that, like, it didn’t really feel like she was back home because so much of her neighborhood has changed, so much of her friends and family have moved in other places, but next has been here forever, you know, so she was like, “it.”
00:07:46
Speaker 3: “Was like, I’m back home.”
00:07:47
Speaker 2: I’m sitting having my coffee in my mug.
00:07:51
Speaker 3: I played at Venetes.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: Who’s like, “I feel at home,” which is, you know, like that’s such a gift to give somebody that’s feeling I’m being home again. That was definitely a full experience. Of course, I love to see the toddlers kicking their feet in the green chairs awaiting the bag of Beignet’s, you know, because it always results just eyebrows, hair, clothes, toes, fingers covered and powdered sugar, and it’s adorable, you know.
00:08:17
Speaker 3: So, I love that. But hearing those other stories, you know, it’s touch.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: So, one fun fact about us is, not only does our family have a lot of history and a lot of, a lot of, I guess, hands in the pot, you’d say here, but we also have a lot of families that work alongside our family. We have families that have two and three generations that work together both here and at some of our branch locations. And they’ve been with our family, you know, some of them over 40 years. So, I think having that family atmosphere makes a huge difference. You know, I think it makes her a great place to work.
00:08:57
Speaker 3: At least I hope it does. Like I said, I used to go to work with my dad and my mom when I was a kid, and Mom, I helped, you know, the little duties. I know what he wants to do.
00:09:07
Speaker 2: I mean, now my dad and I sit, our deaths are right and cross with each other. My first cousin sits 10 feet from me, and I have, you know, six others that work alongside me.
00:09:18
Speaker 3: It’s, it’s special, you know. It’s special to work with family can sit from called, of course, but.
00:09:27
Speaker 2: I think it’s definitely a privilege to work so close with her. You know, all, all the people that love you and along with people who’ve known my entire life because I was here as a toddler. We joked. One of the ladies,
00:09:39
Speaker 2: It’s Kim; has been here, I think, over 50 years, you know. So, she saw me grow up, and now she sees my son come in here, and she’s grabbing his cheeks, you know, and so excited. And she picked him up and she was like, “You’re gonna be my boss one day,” you know, like.
00:09:54
Speaker 3: Which is just so funny.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: He’s 3 years old. So, so’s funny, you know, to have that kind of environment.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: Work in that kind of environment.
00:10:03
Speaker 2: But of course, yeah, we would love, we would love for our family to be able to continue those wonderful professions.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: Wherever it’s been a fun way to grow up.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: It must indeed have been a great way to grow up. You’ve been listening to Emily Yeger. Her family’s been running an institution in New Orleans, a cultural institution, a culinary institution, Cafe Dumont, the original, and it’s right across the street from Jackson Square and right in the heart, right in the heart of the French Quarter, in one of America’s great cities. And again, a special thanks to Emily Yeger for sharing her family story, the family business, and a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Madison Dericott. The story of Cafe Dumont, Emily Yaeger, and her family story here on our American Stories.
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