Morning Call Will Stay In City Park Until Lawsuit Plays Out
Morning Call will remain in City Park, for now.
by Alex Galbraith
July 19, 2018
Morning Call just got a stay of execution.
City Park officials said that they plan to allow the beignet stand to remain in its longtime spot in the park’s casino building while its lawsuit against the Park and rival Cafe du Monde plays out. Initially, the restaurant was ordered to be out of the building by July 21 after failing to renew its lease with the park.
“We are going to wait until after the trial before we do anything with Morning Call,” park spokesman John Hopper told WWL.
A Civil Court spokesperson told the television station that an initial hearing was scheduled for Friday (July 20) but it has been moved to a later date. Morning Call’s owners sued the park following their decision to award a 10-year lease on the building to Cafe du Monde, the shop’s biggest competitor.
While Morning Call did submit a bid on the building, park directors claim that the owners failed to appear at a mandatory pre-bid conference in April. They say that the owners failure to appear forced them to drop their bid and award the space to Cafe du Monde. The owners admit that they were late to the meeting, saying that it ended before they arrived. In the lawsuit, they are asking for an injunction to forbid the deal with Cafe du Monde and keep them from being evicted.
The Morning Call Coffee Stand has called City Park home since 2012. Should it be forced to close, the restaurant will no longer exist in the New Orleans area as they recently shuttered their Metairie location to focus their efforts on the more successful New Orleans branch.
While the owners of Morning Call will certainly be devastated if the lawsuit doesn’t pan out the way they want, we know of at least three New Orleans foodies who will be almost as bummed. In a recent blind taste test of the bitter, sweet rivals, all three of our foodies could tell the difference between Cafe du Monde and Morning Call, with all of them preferring the troubled City Park spot.
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