General Interest Review 00001

Rouse's

Rouse's is a supermarket (not mega saver gigando zone) with at least three locations in New Orleans proper. One is in the French Quarter and one is Uptown. The final installation, located on Carrollton Avenue in the Mid-City section of New Orleans. Anthony Rouse, the proprietor, started his first grocery store down the bayou in Houma, La., in 1960. But at the tail end of his career (he died earlier this year) he was heralded for reinvesting in New Orleans when he bought up the shuttered Sav A Center and A & P stores that dotted the metro area. The move doubled the size of the Rouse's franchise, and it gave that oft-unheralded, much stigmatized area known as The Rest of New Orleans Where Most of the Regular People Live a grocery store. Shockingly, the Mid-City location is the only supermarket from, and this is a conservative estimate, the Orleans Parish limits near the Lower 9th Ward through to Lakeview. That's a sizable chunk right through the heart of the city. (As you may have guessed, since the lower 9 is involved, that's also where a lot of poor people live -- but it's a huge land area, so it would be ignorant to only chalk it up to an issue of economic disparity). The Uptown Rouse's is nary a stone's throw from Winn Dixie and Wal-Mart, just to put things into a little perspective.

Though grocery stores are maligned as one of the many institutions taking on a more homogeneous, corporate (read: boring and lifeless) sort of feel over the last 30 years, there are still enough local grocers hanging around in most parts of the country to give credence to the idea that they're one of the only retailers left that still offers some regional diversity. And in New Orleans, there's no more showy piece of the Old Weird America vibe reeking from the streets like a Katrina fridge that hasn't been opened yet than the food. French or Creole or Cajun or Carribean or somewhere in between, they couldn't come up with some of this stuff again even if the French stumbled upon the Baratarians all over again. (The part about the Acadians getting kicked out of Canada is far too implausible a wrinkle). It's rare that you'll find shrimp remoulade mix displayed prominently in your local Seattle grocery store. And no one can touch the olive selection.

Leaving only one packed grocery store for normal New Orleanians looking to whip up some dinner sends them a message..they don't want us to eat. It's already bad enough, what with the 'We don't want you to live in a good house' vibe already being put across here. Investors may be shaky about setting up shop, but it's not like they wouldn't have business.

So while unheralded nationally on the level of Kanye West and formeldahyde, Rouse's occupies a critical place in that black albatross around the neck of this place known as the post-K landscape. They came and set up shop when no one else would. And unlike their counterparts Robert Fresh Market in the Marigny, they found a way to reopen despite all the insurance and legal hurdles that were thrown down in front of them. Judging by the business over there on Carrollton when I stopped by today, business seems to be alright.