"Coffee and Beignets... Metry-Style!"

A late night "schnack."

A long day included taking my son to the airport, not to fly, but to return his rental car before 9 pm on a Sunday night. I hadn't had any dinner that crazy evening and neither did my mom, who went along for the long seventy-five mile ride from Folsom.

It seemed like one SNAFU after another on that "day of rest" and returning our son's car was no exception. After losing the car keys to his own car after it broke down, when we dropped off the rental car, my son, Brian, also left his cellphone at the front desk and we had to return to the airport again to retrieve it.

Determined to put a positive spin on a horrible Sunday adventure, we stopped at the Morning Call restaurant in Metairie, LA ( pronounced "Metry" by the locals ) to have a couple of orders of beignets with a few cups of cafe au'lait before tackling the drive home.

It must have been about eleven pm when we drove into the parking lot. I remember long ago, when this coffeehouse was located in the French Quarter and where parking is always at a premium, when servers came out to your car and took your order right there at your car door and then, deliver it to you in the parking lot.

I don't think the waiters were on roller skates.

This night, we were lucky to find a table without having to wait, though the place was still quite crowded. Had this been a Friday or late night Saturday, we would have had to wait our turn outside and maybe thumb through a couple of magazines at the Lakeside newsstand till our names were called.

The Morning Call has always been open twenty-four seven!

I don't know if it was because I hadn't eaten in a while, or because I was exhausted by the day, or because it had just been quite a while since I ate there, but those three beignets were the best I've had in a long time.

I decided to immortalize the moment with this sketch, which was completed between my second and third cup of the "nectar of illustration!"

Copyright 2012-2013/ Ben Bensen III