Crawfish Bread is a Hot Dog Bun

When I was a kid, there was a huge scandal when the Metairie Road overpass of the Pontchartrain Expressway collapsed. The overpass had been re-built, but the contractor used extremely sub-standard concrete. One day, it started to literally fall apart, on to cars passing under it on Metairie Road. The fallout was severe, resulting in indictments, jail time, and civil lawsuits.

The problem the contractor had, of course, is that he couldn't afford to do the work for the price he bid. This was because he had to not only pay for materials and labor to do the job, but he had to "grease the skids" with the political types who got him the work.

Now, I don't know if the people who make the Crawfish Bread at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival are having to pay anyone under the table, but when you sink as low as using hot dog buns for your product, you're either making an obscene profit, or you're having to pay off someone big-time. Consider these numbers:

8-pack of Bunny Bread hot dog buns: $2


half a pound of crawfish tails $3


12-oz package of cheese $2


8 foil wrappers $1

Cost of goods is around $1 for an item they're selling for $4. That's three-hundred percent markup. Let's be outrageously conservative and say that labor doubles the price of the item to a total cost of $2, and they're making two bucks for each hot dog bun they hand out of that booth.

And it's not limited to the Crawfish Bread guys. Look at Crawfish Monica:

1-pound package of pasta $1


1 pound of crawfish tails $3


1 cup of heavy cream $2


8 plastic bowls and forks $1

Same profit margins.

Then there's drinks. Beer at $3 per can for Miller is high, but not usurious… $3 apiece for a 20-oz soft drink or a water bottle is, however. You can go to Sam's and get water for $2 a six-pack, and if Coca-Cola is content with the profit on a dollar a bottle from vending machines, $3 retail price is obscene.

All this on top of a $25 admission price, and you've got the makings of high-class ghetto gouging at the Fair Grounds. No wonder locals stayed away in droves this year.