KALDI’S COFFEE SHOP – THE BACKGAMMON GAME, Sunday morning, Decatur Street, New Orleans 1992.

Kaldi’s was a beloved New Orleans instution- a phenomenal coffee shop & performance space in the heart of the Quarter, which opened in 1990 & sadly closed in 2000. Its former old-fashioned space is now a bland, white-walled tourist centre.

If you were goth, rivethead, punk, artsy, raver, literary, chillin’, funky, musical, nerdy, quirky, or homeless in New Orleans in the ’90s, Kaldi’s would always make you welcome. There was fantastic coffee, a huge variety of those fancy shakes and granitas that are now de rigeuer, and the perfect laid-back talk-until-the-wee-hours cafe vibe.

The staff’s nightly closing call: “Unless you work here, or are sleeping with somebody who does, you gotta go!”

(Text adapted from Kaldi’s on Decatur Rocked my World! FB page).

(See the next photograph: Coffee Shop, Sunday morning, Decatur St, New Orleans 1992).