For beignets, think sopapillas with a french accent. Liberally topped with powdered sugar. That inevitably gets on your clothes. It's almost a family tradition to wear black so the powdered sugar shows up after it drops.
BTW - they're pronounced ben-yays. I almost choked on my coffee when I heard a tourist ask for a bee-ig-net.
Hard to believe that a food shop can survive for over 100 years basically serving nothing but coffee and beignets. It's only been in the last 15 or so year's they've added bottled milk (for children) and orange juice.