Visiting Blogging New Orleans earlier today (the Crescent City is home to much of my extended family ... specifically, 25 aunts/uncles/cousins), I came across a rant about Starbucks' (NASDAQ: SBUX) rumored plan to open a shop on storied Jackson Square, home to the St. Louis Cathedral and a famous equestrian statue of our seventh president.

Author Jennifer Jordan calls the mere thought of the corporate descent upon the French Quarter's centerpoint as "totally UNACCEPTABLE" and vows to "get signatures or signs or whatever it takes to keep Starbucks out of the French Quarter." She goes on to say that while SBUX is a fine organization in principle, there is a place for chains, and the 289-year-old French Quarter is not such a place.

Another issue, other than the dichotomy of seeing the ubiquitous green logo sprout up among the old-worldliness of the Vieux Carré, is the inevitable competition that will arise with Café du Monde, a French-Quarter based landmark for café au lait and beignets (French-style doughnuts). Always a stop for me on my frequent visits to my Southern family, Café du Monde is an absolute institution, founded in 1862 and open 24 hours a day.

It will be interesting to see how the plucky folk of New Orleans respond to the threatened encroachment from the Seattle superpower. Petitions are being attached to clipboards as I write this, I am sure, and locals are reportedly beseeching local restaurateurs to snap up the real estate SBUX may currently be eying.

Ms. Jordan closes her plea with the notion that SBUX must be stopped if "we're going to preserve what makes the French Quarter, and the rest of New Orleans, as individual as it is."

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Fat Tuesday is upon us; according to an email from my NOLA-based uncle, the temperatures are pleasant, clouds are few, and my extended family is gathering on St. Charles Avenue for a day of revelry. It's a day of celebration for the struggling city as well, which has seen a rebounding tourism industry this Mardi-Gras season, the second since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in August 2005.

A local businessman, who owns three clubs in the French Quarter, noted that "The weekend [leading up to Mardi Gras] was surprisingly busy ... the crowd is bigger and they're spending a lot of money." According to the Associated Press, the city offered 30,000 hotel rooms this year, up from 13,000 in 2006; more than 95 percent of these rooms were booked.

Other areas of tourism have vastly improved since last year. The number of flights into the region totaled 110 this year, from 68 flights in early 2006. There were 50 major parades this Mardi-Gras season, compared to 42 that rolled the streets of the Big Easy in 2006. And nearly 1,650 restaurants are doing business this year, up from 600 in Mardi Gras 2006.