Morning Call has made good on a threat to sue City Park after its board awarded a long term lease for the beignet stand’s space to rival Cafe du Monde.
In a lawsuit filed Friday at Orleans Parish Civil Court, Morning Call’s owners asked for an injunction that would stop the park from signing a 10-year lease with Cafe du Monde, prohibit them from moving into the space and stopping the park from evicting Morning Call.
Morning Call argues that it submitted the highest bid, which should have meant it would receive the lease.
City Park, however, has said that Morning Call’s owners missed a mandatory pre-bid conference as the park advertised for a new lease for the space in the casino building that Morning Call has called home since 2012. That, the park maintains, led to Morning Call being disqualified.
(story continues under video)
Cafe du Monde's parent company is also listed as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Attorneys who are representing Morning Call wrote in court documents that there is no law that required their clients to be in attendance at the April 27 pre-bid meeting.
“As a result, City Park ‘shall’ award the bid to Morning Call as a matter of law since Morning Call was the highest bidder,” the lawyers wrote.
The lawsuit notes that Morning Call promised 10.5 percent of its profits on top of a monthly lease $10,000 payment. Cafe du Monde offered 10.25 percent, while Cafe Beignet offered 10 percent, according to court documents.
“The bid specifications stated that ‘[T]he lease will be awarded solely on the basis of comparison of percentage rent [sic] of qualified applicants,” the lawsuit reads.
One area of conflict is if anyone from City Park and Morning Call spoke the day of the pre-bid conference.
City Park has said it tried to contact Morning Call’s owners when they failed to appear but received no response. Morning Call disputes that.
“As a matter of note, Morning Call was contacted by City Park administrator Kevin Cox at 10:00 a.m. on the morning of the meeting and was advised that a representative of Morning Call was on his way,” the lawsuit reads. “When co-owner Michael Hennessey arrived at 10:15 a.m., the meeting had already been adjourned.”
Morning Call’s lawsuit also contends that Cafe du Monde only supplied financial information from 2017, instead of from 2013 to 2017, which bid documents required.
“City Park cannot reconcile why one party that failed to comply with the bid requirements was rejected and another party that failed to comply with the bid requirements was awarded the bid, especially when the later party submitted a lower bid.”
Morning Call also noted that it made more than $100,000 in improvements to the space since it moved in and asked to be allowed time to remove some of them if their request for an injunction is denied.
The case has been assigned to Judge Christopher J. Bruno.
Morning Call recently closed its Metairie location to focus on the City Park store. Its owners have said they would like to open another shop elsewhere but have not yet announced any plans to do so.
Danny Monteverde can be reached at danny@wwltv.com.