Excerpted from Caldwell Delaney’s Craighead’s Mobile:

The coffee shop was on the west side of Royal Street, between Dauphin and Conti.  Captain Festorazzi erected the building in 1873.

In 1861, Silvester Festorazzi, a native of Italy, organized the Southern Star Guards, a company of Italians and Spaniards, and became their commander.  This company was attached to the 21st Alabama regiment and served with distinction.  Nearly all available Italian and Spanish residents of the city had gone into the company at the outset.

After the conflict Captain Festorazzi received a pardon in the Name of President Andrew Johnson.  It begins like this:  “Whereas Silvester Festorazzi, of Mobile, Alabama, by taking part in the late rebellion against the government of the United States, has made himself liable to heavy pains and penalties…” 

At that time, and for years after, Mobilians called a coffee shop a “coffee saloon.”  The city had other coffee saloons, two of them at least. Andrew Dacovich’s and John Lawrence’s – as well as Festorazzi’s, but never one exactly like it. 

Coffee was its mainstay.  Tea, chocolate and milk were served, but there was no cooking to order. 

 If a patron did not care for a cold ham sandwich, he could have the ham fried, and he could have toast, if he wanted it, but that was all.  Nothing else was served hot, or even warm.

Before every customer or party that sat at the little marble-top tables two plates were laid, one containing six different types of cake, the other laid with the same number of tarts and slices of pies. 

A piece of cake, a tart, or a slice of pie cost five cents.  Coffee and the other beverages were 10 cents each.  The cake and the pastry were made in-house.

Captain Festorazzi bought green coffee, which he parched and ground himself.  He never brewed more than a gallon at a time.  When trade was brisk, as it usually was, he repeated this operation as often as necessary, but one gallon at a making was his rule, and he stuck to it.  

Milk was served in a tall glass set in a saucer and accompanied by a spoon, so that a customer could break cake in it.

To the present generation this system may not sound good, but in Captain Festorazzi’s day there were many persons who liked it.