Cafe Maison was established in 1974 in the French Quarter spot that had been home to the Morning Call Coffee Stand, which had famously served cafe au lait and beignet there for over a century.
The French Market Corporation had undertaken massive construction and renovation of the French Market in an effort to update it into a tourist attraction. The upheaval was so impactful on the Morning Call's business that the owner could no longer sustain the losses, and he decided to pull up stakes and move to suburban Metairie.
A lease on the vacated space was awarded, somewhat controversially, to local restaurateur Ernie Masson. A stipulation in the lease required any new venture occupying the space to continue to serve cafe au lait and beignet just as the Morning Call had done.
The cafe was originally to be called Cafe Au Lait, but another party, coincidentally an unsuccessful bidder on the lease, had already registered the name. Owner Ernie Masson might have chosen Cafe Maison not only because it (albeit incorrectly) translated to "coffee house" in French, but also because its "CM" monogram could just as easily be read "MC" (Morning Call). Masson would select another longtime veteran of the New Orleans restaurant business, Ronald "Snow" Lenfant, as general manager.
The space was built out entirely new, with no resemblance to the old Morning Call. Gone were the marble counters and fixed stools, replaced by small round tables and bent wire-backed ice cream parlor chairs.
Also gone were the long-spouted pots used to heat and serve coffee and hot milk. Modern commercial equipment was installed to brew coffee, heat milk, and to mix, roll and cut dough for the beignets. The beignet recipe chosen was supposedly more authentically French than that served before and elsewhere.
Those on the waitstaff were engaged as independent contractors, essentially buying the product from the cafe and immediately "reselling" it to the customers. At the beginning of each shift, waiters would be issued a number of tokens whose total value represented their minimum draw for that shift. After filling a customer's order, by moving through a line to pour coffee and plate up orders of beignet, they would pay the cashier with the tokens.
Each token was valued at the current price of an order of beignet, a cup of coffee or tea, or a carton of juice or milk, initially 40 cents each, tax included. After they had expended their tokens, waiters would then pay with the cash they had collected from their customers.
The 40 cent price point was attractive to them because the typical check, 80 cents for one coffee and one order of beignet, would often mean they would at least be given one dollar and be told to keep the change. Small change, but still a 25% tip. Consequently, there was a bit of pushback when the price eventually rose to 50 cents, and most tables' checks would total up to an even dollar amount.
Service began early in the morning and lasted until an hour or two after midnight depending on the day of the week. The cafe was staffed in two shifts, with virtually no overlap. The daytime staff was generally older and of longer tenure; the night crew generally younger and more tolerant of the type of patrons seen in the French Quarter after dark or until the wee hours.
Slow evenings were sometimes bolstered by the arrival of buses full of tourists, promised some authentic cafe au lait and beignet. Bus drivers were "informally incentivized" by management to find an excuse to bypass more internationally-famous Cafe Du Monde just up the street. Staff could count on being amused by the orders for "beige nets", "bignuts" or "briquettes".
Snow Lenfant's wife, Claudia and son, Ron Jr. chipped in as both cashiers and co-managers, along with a couple of other guys to oversee nights and weekends.
Key staff included daytime head waiter "Curly", who apparently had some history with the Lenfants. At night the front of house crew was led by Sammy. Longtime night shift beignet maker was Louis, a retired Army cook who had served in Korea. The rest was a revolving door of dishwashers and janitorial staff.
Regular customers included Mr. Goldberg, proprietor of M. Goldberg For Men and Boys haberdashery just up the block, who would regularly walk down Decatur Street to the cafe for his morning coffee. And which he insisted be served HOT. If the cup handle didn't burn his finger when he touched it, he would reject it and demand a replacement. Since the coffee was brewed and held in the large commercial urns, and there was no microwave oven, a plan was devised. When they saw him coming, Curly would run boiling water over an inverted coffee cup, then carefully turn it upright with a bar towel to fill it, before ferrying it out to Goldberg on a saucer. Worked every time.
Cafe Maison had its brush with fame and the famous in February of 1977. A first-hand account:.
Saturday Night Live is in town to produce its first (and subsequently only) episode ever to be broadcast from outside of New York City. It's Mardi Gras time, and they expect the backdrop of the city's festivities to help inspire and break new comedy ground. It ends up a logistical nightmare, a total flop, and the episode is never shown in re-runs.
It's a Sunday evening-- the show is billed as "The Big Event" prime-time special-- and the producers, crew and some of the cast descend upon the cafe and set up headquarters for a few French Quarter-flavored sketches they've conceived. The GM was most accommodating, serving free coffee and beignet to all of them with an eye toward the publicity he thinks this will surely engender for the restaurant. I'm thinking all the while that he should be charging them rent for the total loss of the night's business it's causing.
Looking even skinnier than they do on TV, original SNL cast members Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner are present, as are, for some inexplicable reason, Monty Python's Eric Idle and singer/songwriter Randy Newman.
John Belushi comes to the counter and asks to use the phone (no pay phone here, no cell phones then). A photo in the local paper of him in the restaurant, with Randy Newman in the background, looked like it was taken from where I usually sat. His arc of fame has not yet reached its apex; he will not begin filming Animal House until the following October. Neither he nor I expect that in just over five years from now he will be dead. He leaves a book of matches behind on the counter that I pocket for a souvenir.
Most of the SNL action (or inaction) that night was taking place elsewhere in town. A parade breakdown left cast "parade commentators" with nothing to comment on. Musical guests who were supposed to perform at Municipal Auditorium didn't. And all that happened show-wise at the cafe was Belushi doing a Stanley Kowalski "Stella!!!" shout to the upstairs window of the French Market Corporation's office across the street, and Idle doing some on-the-scene reporter schtick on the patio out in front of the cafe.
By 1978, the success of the French Market renovation was debatable, and Masson's bid to change the lease to month-to-month was accepted.
To prop up diminishing sales, the cafe began serving omelets during the daytime, and added an old Navy cook to the staff to prepare them.
By 1980, the cafe was in decline and the French Market Corporation debated revoking the lease altogether. It subsequently closed, and in the Fall of 1982 its fixtures and contents were liquidated.
Cafe Maison: Breakfast, 1000 Decatur, New Orleans (French Quarter) - map