I was out running in the middle of nowhere, preparing for an inevitable future in which it's…read morenecessary for me to retreat into the woods, when it was decided that we needed to get coffee. Someone from my group consulted their cell and determined that this was the closest place. I'd never heard of it. Apparently, it's a chain with multiple locations in some of our pastier exurbs. It makes you wonder what else there might be.
PJ's claims to be a New Orleans coffee shop. What exactly is meant by that, I'm not sure. The coffee, at least in terms of the various preparations, seems to be the same coffee you'd get anywhere else. If you were to squint, I guess you could say that the decor on the inside is New Orleans themed. The exterior looks like the exterior of any chain establishment these days, including newer McDonald's, i.e. like a circa '09 Chipotle. Do the baristas flash you and allow you to throw beads at them? Sadly, no. I asked.
Near the register there was an ad for a seasonal selection. I believe it was called a Peppermint Bark Velvet Ice, but I could be mistaken (indeed that doesn't sound like a very good name for a drink). It's not even Thanksgiving, and in fact, as I'm writing this, we're only one week removed from Halloween, but I'll allow it. I'm all PSLd out due to living near an Aldi. Anyway, this was perfect for me, because I could see what it looked like, and it spared me from having to investigate the menu further. As an inveterate brokie, I don't get coffee from fancy shops like this, but when I do, it needs to be something ridiculous, that someone might post on Instagram alongside a Labubu. I could get Folgers at home.
They also carry beignets. Hence, presumably, the name. I got the smallest serving of the larger of the two sizes of beignets that they carry, which came with three of them. I'm not going to say what my total came to, out of embarrassment. I feel like a senior citizen who's just been sold a parcel of swamp land. Part of it is that I opted for a large drink. I was warned by the cashier that it comes in a very large cup. I told her that was no big deal, not realizing just how big it would be. This thing was an absolute unit, bigger than any reasonable person would need. They probably only keep it on the menu for idiots like me, who don't bother to check the actual size and price.
It wasn't clear to me what was meant by velvet Ice, and it still isn't. I'd say it's along the lines of a frappe, with the caveat that I know very little about coffee drinks. The overall vibe was more chocolate than peppermint, but with bits of peppermint candy. It drinks more like an iced coffee than a milkshake, and you could slam one pretty quickly if you weren't paying attention, and you liked it that much. There's a generous whipped cream and chocolate syrup topping that doesn't melt down into the drink the way it would if the drink were hot. You end up eating it all at the end, as a sort of dessert to your dessert.
Which brings us to the beignets. They're weirdly precise in their dimensions, like maybe they're heated up from frozen. They're served warm, and they're not given to you immediately, but it didn't occur to me to look and see how they were prepared. I'd describe these as being more like a dinner roll and less like a funnel cake, but not necessarily in a bad way. Ultimately, it's probably not possible to mess up a beignet. They're probably not nearly as good if you get them to go and end up eating them cold. Fortunately, I ate mine there. The seating area was nice, if maybe a little cramped, with a tiny sofa and a couple of comfy-looking chairs in addition to a row of tables. It was a veritable ghost town while we were there, so that ended up not being an issue. It was a Sunday, so people may have been at church, trying to get right with the Lord.
