Morning Call Coffee Stand Is Moving the City Park Beignet Battle to Court

The Morning Call Stand, the 150-year old beignet stand that has operated out of the City Park Casino Building since 2012, has sued City Park over its lost bid to continue to operate out of the space, Ian McNulty reports.

The park accepted bids from several different beignet outfits with plans to award the 10-year lease to the highest bidding beignet maker. Morning Call, the high bidder, missed a mandatory pre-bid meeting (it claims it was only 15 minutes late to the meeting and it was already over) and City Park awarded the lease to Cafe du Monde, the next highest bidder.

City Park said that park officials called Morning Call owners when they noticed they weren’t at the meeting. When the beignet stand owners didn’t get there before the meeting was over, City Park says it had no choice but to award the lease to someone who was there. Morning Call allegedly wrote a letter of apology for missing the meeting.

The lawsuit says that the park should have only considered the highest bid when assigning the lease according to state bid laws. It also asks for an injunction to allow it to continue to operate out of the City Park Casino Building on a month-to-month basis until the beignet battle plays out in court. (Morning Call had received a notice on June 19 to shut down and move out by within 30 days). The lawsuit also says that Cafe du Monde didn’t meet all the bid requirements either, saying it only supplied 2017 financial information rather than 2013 through 2017.

So, it really comes down to state bid laws. Does the high bid trump all, even mandatory meetings? If not, what requirements would topple the high bid — failure to attend a mandatory meeting, failure to provide required financial information?

If the City Park location of Morning Call shutters, the iconic beignet stand will have no more stores open. It closed its 40-year-old Metairie location at the end of April.

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• Morning Call Sues City Park Over its Loss in Beignet Parlor Bidding Battle [ADVOCATE]
• Morning Call Is Not Thrilled It Lost Its City Park Bid [ENOLA]
• City Park Claps Back at Morning Call [ENOLA]
• Café du Monde Is Taking Over Morning Call’s Space in City Park [ENOLA]
• City Park Will Keep the Beignets, But Maybe Not Morning Call’s Beignets [ENOLA]
• After 40 Years, Morning Call Shutters in Metairie [ENOLA]
• Tracking What’s Going on With City Park’s Casino Building Beignet Stall [ENOLA]