Excerpted from Caldwell Delaney’s Craighead’s Mobile:

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

Although surrounded by competitors who served coffee at five cents, half his price, the captain made a fortune, and when Charley and Mary DeBriere, who followed him as proprietors, sold out they retired with a sizeable bank roll.

One of the reasons for the success of Festorazzi’s was an atmosphere that approximated the popular conception of the London coffee houses 200 years ago.  Many patrons of Festorazzi’s met there regularly to linger over their coffee and cake and discuss the happenings of the day.  While there were never any seditious utterances, and nobody ever advocated the overthrow of the government, there was abundant criticism of government affairs. 

A certain group became known as the “Knocker’s Club,” and one night when they assembled at their favorite table they found attached to the wall above the board a new hammer tied with a bow of black ribbon.

Sylvester Festorazzi was born at Regolo, near Lake Como, in 1819.  He became a confectioner, and worked at the trade first in Milan, then in Marseille.  In 1850, he came to New Orleans where he went into the confectionery business.  He came to Mobile in 1854, and his first venture here was a confectionery shop at the corner of Dauphin and St. Emanuel.

In 1883 he was appointed to the Italian Consulship here, which post he held until his death in 1897.  Three years before he dies he sold the coffee shop.

Mary Schaffer, afterwards DeBriere, was a little girl when she became a waitress at Festorazzi’s and Madame Festorazzi virtually reared her.

Charley and Mary DeBriere made money in Festorazzi’s and then sold the business to former Sheriff John E. Powers.  After a time they bought it back for much less then they got for it.  Later they sold it again, this time to A. D. Bennett.  When he had had enough of the place they took it off his hands.  Again they made money, and then another ex-sheriff, Thomas T. Palmer, made an offer for the business and they sold it to him.  When Mr. Palmer decided to quit, it was found that the DeBriers had made a similar decision. They declined to take the place again.

The business had changed greatly since Captain Festorazzi’s day.  To the original menu someone had added steak abd eggs in various styles.  Next, bacon and sausage got into the house.  After that, it was easy for fish and oysters to slide in.  Bit by bit the bill of fare was built up until the stand became a regular restaurant, serving everything from shrimp cocktail to charlotte russe.  Festorazzi’s had lost its romance.  It was just a place to eat.

The refusal of the DeBriers to return was more than the business could withstand, and it gave up the ghost.

Like “the wild ass” that stamps on the grave of Jamshid, “but cannot break his sleep,” all the traffic on Royal Street cannot bring Festorazzi’s back from the dead.