2019 Rouses SE ROY

The

Report

rom the editor

Rouses respected by vendors, loved by customers—an ideal choice for our Retailer of the Year Award

You are holding in your hands the largest special section The Shelby Report has done in its 51-year history.

These 100 pages are testament to the strength of Rouses Markets’ relationship with its customers and vendors—as well as its team members—that has been developed over the past 58 years since Anthony Rouse Sr. and his cousin Ciro DiMarco opened a small grocery store in Houma, Louisiana.

According to Ali Rouse Royster, managing partner and granddaughter of Mr. Anthony, “That’s something that stays with us.

“My family is still very cognizant of the fact that people have lots of choices to shop for groceries. We’re very happy you shop with us, and we’re going to keep working every day to make sure that you want to keep coming and shopping at Rouses.”

That’s why the policy at Rouses is “the answer is yes.”

Company chairman Donald Rouse, a member of the company’s second generation, says of that policy: “We empower our team to do what’s right for the customer. I always tell our team that they’d just as soon say ‘yes’ to what the customer needs because if the request gets all the way to me, I’m going to say yes. If the customer wants something or needs something, the answer is yes. That helps them take care of the customer.”

Today’s leadership is a mixture of the second and third generations, as you will see, but it’s expected that in the not-too-distant future there will be a fourth generation starting to learn the business.

According to a source close to the family and the Rouses Markets operations, “They’re setting up the business for the next generation. I’m really impressed that everyone wants the business to make it to the fourth generation and allow them to have the same opportunities.”

This same source said that the family members work as hard, or probably even harder, than anyone else at Rouses. They know they are being scrutinized, and they want to set a good example. It’s what Mr. Anthony did, and that’s a fine example to follow.

Congratulations to Rouses Markets, our 2018 Southeast Retailer of the Year. No doubt, the distinction is well deserved.

P.S.

Growth through the years has come through both acquisitions and new store construction. The grocer now has reached 60 stores in three states—Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama—with an average of five to eight new stores a year expected to be added for the foreseeable future.

That’s not common these days, especially for a family-owned company.

But then again, Rouses is certainly not common. (How many southern grocers get requests from California residents to open stores?)

I had the privilege of conducting interviews with 10 company executives, and passion for their work is the common denominator I discovered. They are passionate about food and serving people, and those two ingredients are two of the most important in the Rouses recipe.

That recipe is continuously being refined as shoppers and their needs change, but the foundation remains.

Passion for food and serving people certainly was embodied by Anthony Rouse. Those who knew him—and many of the long-term employees of Rouses were able to work with him prior to his death in 2009—know that he was devoted to offering Rouses customers the best quality products at the best price. He also always remembered and reminded his team that customers’ business has to be earned every day; it’s not a right, but a privilege to serve them.

The story is told that just prior to a new store opening its doors, Anthony took the store director out to the parking lot and asked him what he saw out there.

The director replied, “An empty parking lot.”

Anthony said, “Remember that, because nobody has to show up today. There’s no guarantee that somebody’s going to walk through the doors and shop for groceries. We have to remember every day that that’s not a given. We have to earn that.”

Thanks for the meal at Rouses #16…the fried chicken, chicken salad, boudin balls, muffaletta, red beans and rice, head-on shrimp and, later on, Gentilly Cake, are the stuff dreams are made of.

—Lorrie Griffith, editor in chief

“We’re so honored to be ranked among the best in the country—but it’s even more important to us that we’re the best in each community we serve. Our customers have consistently voted us best grocery store in their neighborhood year after year, which is, for us, an equally incredible honor.”

—Donny

CEO, 3rd Generation

F

Presenting the award to CEO Donny Rouse.

Rouses Markets Opens Its 60th Store Well Ahead of Its 60th Anniversary

In November 2018, Rouses Markets opened its 60th supermarket. What began as one small store in southern Louisiana has spread to two more Gulf Coast states—and growth is on the books for years to come.

Rouses Markets’ roots were planted in 1960 by Anthony J. Rouse Sr. and his cousin Ciro DiMarco, who together opened a grocery store called Ciro’s in Houma, Louisiana.

Today, Rouses Markets, now based in Thibodaux, is one of the largest independent family-owned grocers in the U.S. It is led by third-generation CEO Donny Rouse and his fellow managing partners: his father, Donald Rouse, chairman, and his cousin, Ali Rouse Royster (daughter of Donald’s brother Tommy and his wife Karen).

Anthony got a taste of the food business before he and Ciro opened their store, however. His father, J.P. Rouse, opened City Produce Co. in Thibodaux in 1923.

and fix everything.”

The day of the grand opening, they made $300.

The store had four employees at the outset: Anthony Sr., Ciro and two employees: Wilford Rodrigue in produce, and Leland Rodrigue, the butcher.

“But as soon as we kids were old enough to work, we did—after school, on weekends and holidays,” Tony said. “My brothers and I would stock shelves and bag and carry groceries.”

“Mr. Wilford grew Creole tomatoes at his place in Chackbay, and we would clean and pack them in the back of the store, same as the cabbage and shallots and oranges from neighborhood farms. Daddy bought from everyone,” Tony added. “Mr. Leland taught us all how to cut meat—I had to stand on a Coke case to reach the saw. I think

“My grandfather, our founder, would have loved this. Pa started with one store in Houma, Louisiana, back in 1960. He—along with my dad and my uncles—built our company into the largest independent grocery in Louisiana and then one of the largest independents in the United States. I’m the third generation to lead the family business and, frankly, I’ve never thought of doing anything else.”

—Donny

City Produce sorted, packed and shipped fresh Louisiana produce all over the country, selling in supermarkets as far away as Alaska.

As soon as Anthony was old enough, around 1954, he went to work in the City Produce packing shed.

When J.P. Rouse passed away in 1954, Anthony and Ciro took over the business.

The 7,000-s.f. Ciro’s opened in Houma in 1960. Anthony’s sons—Tony, Wayne, Donald and Tommy— helped out at the store after school and on weekends.

According to Tony, “Daddy and Ciro invested everything they had in that little supermarket. Daddy built the store from scratch—he was the engineer, architect and carpenter. He never went to college or even finished high school, but he just knew how to design and build

we all learned to drive in the old store truck. We got our milk from Acadia Dairy in Thibodaux (Brown’s Dairy purchased Acadia in 1994), and we took turns driving over to the dairy to swap out an empty truck for one full of milk.”

In 1974, Anthony started work on a second store, this one in Thibodaux. The next year, Ciro retired and Donald Rouse bought his share in the business.

Around that time, according to longtime Rouses employee Malcom Landry, “Ciro’s was busting at the seams, so when the Piggly Wiggly across the street came up for sale in 1979, Rouses bought the store, stock included. I was part of the package.

“The first time I ever met Mr. Anthony, he was cleaning the grease trap,” Landry added. “I didn’t know who he was, so I asked, ‘Who is that man in the overalls working in the back of the store?’ I wasn’t the first or the last employee who failed to recognize Mr. Anthony. You’d hear, ‘who’s that man on the bulldozer? Who’s that man working on the wiring ....?’”

That first store was an early indicator of how the Rouses would see a need to be filled and quickly find a way to fill it.

Tommy noted that the company started doing boat orders due to the need.

“Three days a week, one of us—usually Donald—would get up at 4 in the morning, drive to Houma, pick up groceries at Ciro’s, load them on the truck and drive down to Galliano, Dulac or the Cocodrie Marine Terminal,” he said. “Today, we deliver to offshore service vessels, platforms, lift boats and inland tugs all over the Gulf Coast, from Texas through the Florida panhandle. The captains and crews love it when the big Rouses van pulls up full of food.”

The decade of the 1980s brought expansion across South Louisiana. Anthony’s sons

“Mr. Anthony” Rouse. Please see page 6

Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation

From page 4

Donald and Tommy became managing partners.

In 1995, Rouses opened its first Metairie location after acquiring two former Delchamps stores there.

Four years later, in 1999, the company opened its first “epicureanstyle” markets in Houma and Thibodaux.

By that time, Rouses had grown to be the largest independent grocer in Louisiana.

The year 2003 took the company into St. Tammany Parish, with the opening of a 54,000-s.f. store in Covington. That store was followed by other St. Tammany Parish locations in Mandeville and Slidell.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck, impacting a number of Rouses stores. The two in Metairie were looted, one closing permanently after that. (Rouses did not operate stores in New Orleans proper at that time.)

In 2007, with the area still feeling the effects from Katrina and then Hurricane Rita, Rouses acquired A&P’s Southern Division, giving the company its first stores in Mississippi and New Orleans itself. The company doubled in size overnight to 30-plus stores.

On March 5, 2009, founder Anthony J. Rouse Sr. died at age 79 following a brief illness. He had helped guide the business for nearly 50 years.

A store in Youngsville, Louisiana, opened in 2009 and, in 2011, Rouses opened its first store in Lafayette, Louisiana, across from Cajun Field.

In November of that year, downtown New Orleans saw the opening of its first major grocery store in 50 years when Rouses opened a store in the historic Sewell Cadillac building in the Warehouse District.

Around that same time, Donny Rouse and Ali Rouse Royster became managing partners, marking the third generation to lead the family business.

The company again grew via acquisition in 2014, when Rouses acquired five former Belle Foods stores in Lower Alabama. These were the company’s first locations in that area, and included stores in Mobile, Gulf Shores, Spanish Fort, Saraland and Theodore.

A growth spurt in 2016 saw Rouses open stores in Denham Springs, Ponchatoula and Baton Rouge and later acquire LeBlanc’s Food Stores, which had nine stores in the Baton Rouge area, bringing the total number of Rouses Markets to 54.

Also that year, Donny Rouse was appointed CEO.

Since then, Rouses has continued opening stores, including a 2017 store in Bluebonnet Village Shopping Center in Baton Rouge. Its first store in Lower Alabama that offers all the company’s “bells and whistles” opened in Mobile this past April, followed by stores in Orange Beach, Alabama, as well as Covington, Sulphur Springs, Moss Bluff and Baton Rouge, Louisiana (the 60th store).

Eight more stores are planned for 2019 for the grocer, which has more than 6,700 team members.

Anthony and Joyce Rouse at a company picnic.

Joyce and Anthony Rouse and other Rouses’ family and team members cut the ribbon on a new store.

“Mr. Rouse used to buy all of the produce from the farmers in the area whether he needed it or not because he said it was important for the community.”

—Larry

Daigle, produce

Highlights from Rouses History

1923

J.P. Rouse opens City Produce Co., a produce packing and shipping company based in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

1975

Ciro retires and Donald Rouse buys his share of the business. The original store in Houma is renamed Rouse’s Supermarket. Donald’s brothers, Tommy and Tony, and sisters, Jeaneen and Cindy, work in the store.

2003

The first of six Rouses Markets in St. Tammany opens, a 54,000‑s.f. store in Covington.

2010

Rouses acquires Choice Supermarkets in Long Beach and Diamondhead.

2011

Rouses opens the first of two stores in Lafayette.

1943

Anthony J. Rouse Sr. goes to work for his dad, J.P., at City Produce.

1976

Anthony and his children build Rouses #1 on St. Mary Street in Thibodaux. That store is now Rouses Store Support Center.

2005

Rouses #19 in Metairie is permanently closed after damage during Hurricane Katrina. Four months later, there is a sign of resilience as Rouses opens a brand new upscale market in Mandeville.

2013‑14

Rouses acquires five Belle Foods stores in Lower Alabama from the stores’ wholesaler, Associated Wholesale Grocers. Over the course of five weeks, stores in Theodore, Mobile, Spanish Fort, Saraland and Gulf Shores are converted to Rouses. Within a year, the company is named best grocery store in Lower Alabama.

When J.P. Rouse passes away, Anthony and his cousin, Ciro DiMarco, take over the City Produce business.

1976‑95

The family expands into Raceland, Larose and Morgan City and opens new stores throughout Houma and Thibodaux. Rouses is named Largest Independent Grocer in Louisiana.

2007

Rouses signs a deal to acquire A&P’s Southern Division; the company doubles in size overnight to more than 30 stores.

1960

The cousins open Ciro’s Supermarket in Houma, a 7,000‑s.f. store with only four employees, including Anthony and Ciro.

1995

Rouses acquires two former Delchamps stores in Metairie.

2009

A new Rouses Market opens in Youngsville, Louisiana.

2016

Rouses opens stores in Denham Springs, Ponchatoula and Baton Rouge. Later in the year, the company acquires LeBlanc’s Food Stores, which had nine stores in the Baton Rouge area, bringing the total number of Rouses Markets to 54. Donny Rouse is appointed CEO.

2018

Rouses opens new stores in West Mobile and Orange Beach, Alabama, and Lake Charles, Sulphur and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Second, Third Generations Collaborate for Continued Success at Rouses

Donald Rouse, chairman of Rouses Markets, is one of six children of founder Anthony Rouse Sr. Though he is semi-retired now, he still is a managing partner in the business, as are his son Donny, CEO, and niece, Ali Rouse Royster. He continues to be involved in Rouses, but has time now to do other projects, too, such as restoring a plantation house in Thibodaux.

“I’m still around, still available and still giving them my thoughts and my ideas and direction. They may not do everything I say, but at least they listen to me,” he says, laughing.

Donald has rich history in the grocery business, going back to his junior high school days working at Ciro’s, the 7,000-s.f. store his dad and his dad’s cousin, Ciro DiMarco, opened in Houma. All of Anthony’s sons—Tony, Wayne, Donald and Tommy—worked at the store as they were growing up, stocking shelves, bagging groceries or whatever needed doing.

Donald was 12 years old when he began working at the store regularly.

“I started bagging, and continued that right on through high school,” he says.

After high school graduation, he enrolled at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.

It was about that time that Ciro wanted to retire from the business. He had no children, so he approached Donald about buying him out.

“He asked if I was interested in buying his stock. Naturally I was, because I enjoyed very much the business,” he says.

With financing help from his father and Ciro, Donald acquired Ciro’s share of the business in 1975.

“I quit college and began running the business along with my father at the age of 18. I’ve been an owner of the company ever since,” Donald says.

The growth begins

At the time Donald became a partner, his dad was in the process of building a second store: Rouses #1 on St. Mary Street in Thibodaux, which was just yards away from the Rouse family home (and today is the Rouses Store Support Center).

At the time, the typical grocery size was 20,000 s.f.; the new store was 28,000 s.f.

“It had the very first floral shop, bakery and deli in the area (our tarte-a-la-bouille custard pie dates back to that first store),” Donald says. “We used the produce, meat and seafood off of our shelves to make our deli specials. We still do that today. We served a plate lunch based on what my mom made that day of the week. Red beans and rice on Mondays; lasagna or meatballs on Wednesdays; seafood on Friday. We still do that, too.”

The butcher at Rouses #1 was Carroll Zeringue, who is now a meat buyer at Rouses.

“Dad made hogshead cheese and boudin in the backyard. He and Carol made the fresh green onion sausage in the kitchen. We fried fish and boiled crawfish in the backyard. My brothers Tommy and Wayne would go get the crawfish out of Belle River,” Donald says.

The store also was out in front in terms of technology, he says, noting that it was probably the first grocery store in the state to install a bar code scanner.

The first UPC codes weren’t invented until the early 1970s, and the first supermarket scanner wasn’t installed until 1974. Rouses was quick to innovate with technology even back then, and that continues today, with e-commerce and all the other ways of digitally connecting with consumers.

Meantime, the small Houma store, Ciro’s, was doing well and needing more space. A Piggly Wiggly had opened up across the street, a much larger store than Ciro’s, and Donald began to talk to his father about the possibility of buying the store, which was not as popular with shoppers as Ciro’s was.

After some meetings with the owners, Donald and his father ended up acquiring that store.

Next up was Raceland, which was down the bayou from the other two stores. Again, Anthony Sr. and Donald set up a meeting with the owner about their interest in buying the store. They had to wait a few

Donald Rouse Sr.

From page 10

years until the owner wanted to retire, but “we were able to acquire that store,” Donald says. “We just kept going from there.”

At that point, they turned their attention to building more of their own stores.

Anthony, who had watched the contractor closely when Rouses #1 was being built, became his own contractor for subsequent stores. It wasn’t unusual to see Mr. Anthony in his coveralls at a construction site, getting in there and doing work to get the stores open.

Ali says, “Pa’s customary work outfit was coveralls, but he occasionally swapped coveralls for overalls or jeans. He was almost always dressed and prepared to climb a ladder, fix a light, fit a pipe or drive a forklift.”

Donald was gifted in putting together the store layout, so he would work with the architects on the design.

Rouses kept growing through new store construction until Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After Katrina, New Jersey-based A&P decided to sell off its Southern Division, comprising stores in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast.

Donald’s brother Tommy had joined the business by that time, handling the technology needs of the company. The three decided to make an offer on A&P’s stores—which were operating under the Sav-A-Center name—and A&P accepted.

“That doubled the size of our company at the time,” Donald says. “We had about 15 stores and they had 18.”

One of the A&P stores Rouses acquired, on Power Boulevard in Metairie, originally was operated by Schwegmann’s, once a well-known name in the Louisiana grocery industry. Rouses invested $5 million-plus into that store a couple of years ago to bring it up to the company’s current layout and product mix.

More stores continued to be added.

Though Anthony Rouse Sr. passed away in 2009, “we continued on,” Donald says, “just as Daddy wanted us to.”

Donny, Donald’s son, joined the company full-time in 2005 after completing college, having carried on the family tradition of working in the stores while he was growing up. He had worked at Rouses #1 from the time he was about 10 years old, helping bag groceries.

Local partnerships important to Rouses

Sazerac is a name with a history dating back to the 1830s, when Creole immigrant Antoine Peychaud operated a pharmacy on Royal Street in the French Quarter. With his apothecary background, Peychaud was a natural mixologist, and after hours, his pharmacy became a late-night gathering spot. He mixed brandy and absinthe with his own bitters to make a drink that would become known as a Sazerac.

Today, Donald Rouse’s friend Bill Goldring is chairman of Sazerac, the country’s largest distiller, which produces spirits under the Sazerac name as well as Buffalo Trace and several others.

The companies have teamed up to promote their shared Louisiana heritage over the years, and today Rouses sells more of Sazerac’s whiskey than any other retailer.

“We work with them, we push their products and we tell a story,” Donald says.

The partnership, in fact, led to the creation of a whiskey with Donny Rouse’s name on it.

“We selected the barrels of whiskey we wanted bottled and Donny would have his name on them,” Donald says. “We get into the details when we get behind something.”

A museum, Sazerac House, is being installed on Canal Street in New Orleans, Donald adds. There’s a bar of the same name on Roosevelt.

“They’re a big influence here, and we’re a big partner of theirs,” he says.

Another local partner of Rouses is the New Orleans Saints.

“What a good year to be a partner with the Saints,” Donald says (at press time, the NFL team’s record was 8-1).

“From the moment I signed, my father treated me like a partner,” Donald adds. “He gave me the opportunity to make decisions and learn. I tried to do the same with my son, Donny, when he was coming in the business.

“It’s been a great adventure, a great time, watching Donny and Ali take over for my brother, who is now retired from the business.”

The goal is to be the best

“We’ve been remodeling and building stores constantly,” Donald says. “We put a lot of money back into the business—that’s how we keep our stores like you see them and we keep building.”

Seven stores are planned for 2019.

Donald notes the company is being led by “a great team of young people,” including Donny and Ali, as well as Steve Black, a former Lucky’s Market and Sunflower/Sprouts Farmers Market executive who joined Rouses about two years ago as president and COO.

“He has really brought a lot to the table, coming from all the experiences he’s had at the different companies,” Donald says, noting that the natural/organic/specialty offerings now are amplified in the stores thanks to Black’s influence.

“That has helped us,” Donald says.

Operating in a region of the country where people really love food, both cooking and eating it, Rouses stores “really put a lot of emphasis on prepared foods and ready-to-cook foods. We probably do that as good as anybody in the industry. And our stores look as good as anybody’s in the industry,” Donald says.

“With that being said, and I continue to preach this today—we can build the prettiest stores in the country, but we’ve got to have the right people trained in our stores to make it work. Steve Black is a fantastic teacher and mentor, so we are now beginning to see the momentum when it comes to that as well. It’s so nice to be able to take care of our people and to have people at the top of the company that are interested in our people as well as our customers. It’s really fun.”

Because training is so important, Rouses has developed an online program for both orientation and training so that the company’s culture can be uniformly communicated.

“You plant seeds, and eventually you see the results,” Donald says. “We’re beginning to see the results, and the momentum is pretty strong for us right now.

“We want to be the best,” he adds. “We’re working toward it, and when I talk to our team, I say, ‘I want my name to be spoken in the same sentence when they mention Publix and H-E-B and Wegmans and those type stores.’ That’s what I preach; I want to be one of the best in the country.”

Please see page 14

The week after Donald spoke with The Shelby Report, the team’s famed and beloved quarterback Drew Brees was scheduled to film a Visa commercial at the Rouses store on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans.

“They asked how much I wanted for them to film it, and I said, ‘I don’t want anything; just come on to the store, we’re glad to have you,’” Donald says.

Brees has partnered with Rouses on contests and other events over the years, and “he’s been a great friend of ours and so are the Saints,” Donald says.

“My dad gave me the opportunity to make decisions and learn. I tried to do the same with my son, Donny, when he was coming in the business.”

—Donald Rouse, chairman and managing partner

Bill Goldring with Donald Rouse

Ali Rouse Royster with Saints cheerleaders and mascot at the store opening in Covington, Louisiana, in September 2018.

From page 12

Early to promote product makers

Donald believes Rouses has been able to grow over its 58-year history by “being different and separating ourselves. Going above and beyond with not only our people, but with our products and the way we present ourselves and our products to the consumer.

“And staying local. And being focused on local,” he adds. “Everybody can say that, but we started that when we entered New Orleans. It seems like everybody’s talking about it now, but down here we were the first one to pick up on that and to use that.”

As the Rouse family has roots in Italy and the Gulf Coast has a vast Italian population, the company has emphasized Italian food over the years—which feels local to those folks. That has only grown in recent years, as company executives have begun to travel to Italy to find producers to work with directly on products for the grocer’s private label program. These range from pasta sauces to meats and sparkling mineral waters and Italian sodas.

“We made a big push with Italian,” Donald says. “Everybody is enjoying it, and we’re getting a lot of good feedback on the products.”

The key is not only to stock local products but to be able to tell the story of the products, he says—tying products to the people and companies that make them.

“Another thing I preach is not just to put a price and an item in the ad; I want the story. I want to know who made that olive oil; I want to see a picture of them in the field.

“We’re doing that, and I think that’s the right angle and the right direction,” Donald says. “It separates us from the competition. A lot of them are trying to follow now, but once you lead and you’re known for that, it’s kind of hard to get ahead of the leader.”

As demographics continue to shift in its marketing area, Rouses is beginning to strengthen its offerings in other ethnic categories, such as Hispanic.

Rouses also tells the story of its own people, emphasizing the job they do and how they enjoy what they do, he says.

“On Halloween, we must have had half the team dressed up in costumes,” Donald says. At one store, “they must have had 20 people dressed as zombies and they were dancing in the front of the store. They have fun and we allow them to have fun. We allow them to make decisions. We empower our team to do what’s right for the customer. I always tell them they’d just as soon say yes because if it gets all the way to me, I’m going to say yes. If the customer wants something or needs something, the answer is yes. And keep it simple; we’ll talk about it later. That helps them to know the answer is yes, take care of the customer.”

Because of the importance of good food and discerning palates in the areas where it operates stores, Rouses enlists chefs to talk about the products they use from the store. Huge banners featuring the chefs’ faces appear in Rouses stores. The chef who appears in the store typically lives in the area as well.

Set up for a bright future

“If the future is anything like that past, we’re set to continue to grow and continue to be one of the best in the country,” Donald says. “I don’t see anything stopping us. We do not lose. And we will not let anyone do something we can’t do.”

David Smith, left, president and CEO of Rouses’ wholesaler, Associated Wholesale Grocers, poses here in 2014 with Donald Rouse, as Rouses opened its fifth store in Lower Alabama. Smith led the opening of AWG’s warehouse in Pearl River, Louisiana, which currently supplies Rouses’ stores.

“At Rouses, we believe in supporting good people and good causes while contributing to the neighborhoods where we work and live. As we grow, so does our commitment to our customers and the communities we serve.”

—Donny Rouse, CEO,

3rd Generation

Thank you for naming us Southeast Retailer of the Year.

My grandfather, our founder, would have loved this. Pa started with one store in Houma, Louisiana, back in 1960. He—along with my dad and my uncles—built our company into the largest independent grocery in Louisiana and then one of the largest independents in the United States. I’m the third generation to lead the family business and, frankly, I’ve never thought of doing anything else.

My cousins and I, when we were kids, started tagging along to the stores with our dads on the weekends and after school. We are still in our stores every day. For us, one of the nicest things about visiting the stores is talking to our customers. We hear what you say—lately you want more prepared foods, and more of our great store brands—and that influences what we focus on, helping us make sure we are bringing you the items you need and want.

We also spend a lot of time talking to our team members. I always say, it’s not just what’s in our stores that makes us stand out from our competition—it’s who’s in our stores. Awards like Best Grocery Store and Southeast Retailer of the Year are only possible because of our fantastic team. We have so many incredible people who are part of our company, and the reward is as much for them as for us. We are beyond grateful for their contribution.

You know, every year, we get hundreds of requests from customers who want us to build a store in their neighborhood. I love that die-hard Rouses fans will drive hours to get a Rouses Gentilly cake for a special occasion, but I’d love even more to make sure they have a Rouses closer to home. Another big reason we build more stores is so our team members have greater opportunities to grow in their careers. I think that’s one reason we’ve been on the top Best Companies to Work For lists in addition to receiving the Retailer of the Year award, too. Our team members are committed, just like we are, to providing the best grocer services to be found in the region, and that’s a real win-win situation.

And finally, a huge thank you goes to our exceptional vendor partners for paying attention to the things that matter most to our customers. What we do would not be possible without you. Many thanks!

Donny Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation

Third-generation Managing Partners Ali Rouse Royster and Donny Rouse (CEO).

Third-Generation Leader Absorbed Industry Wisdom from an Early Age

Donny Rouse grew up bagging groceries in the Rouses store on St. Mary Street in Thibodaux that now houses the company’s offices.

When Rouses #1 was operating as a store, the house behind the store—where his dad, Donald, grew up—functioned as the office. Donny grew up in a house across the street from the store.

“In elementary school, as soon as I was able to walk across the street, Mom and Dad would let me come to the office after school. I got to sit with my dad in his office and listen to him and my grandfather discuss the business. So, from an early age I was involved, understanding what the grocery business was about.”

By the time he was 11 or 12, he helped start bagging groceries in #1, working a couple of hours a day during summer break.

Around age 15, he started working in the meat department, learning about the operations of the meat department and doing things like packing whole chickens and cutting steaks. His dad, who had worked in the meat department himself for quite a few years, was not keen on Donny using the meat saw, so the youngster cut steaks with a knife.

“I got out of there as quick as I could—it was cold—and I moved into the produce department,” he says.

True to his grandfather’s roots in the produce business, Donny says he loved working in that department, calling it his favorite area of the store that he worked in.

Donny recalled that Anthony started out farming, then got into shipping produce, “but he always took care of the farmer. When he was buying produce from the farmer, even if he made a promise and the crop didn’t come out like it was supposed to, he still bought that whole field. Or if the farmer had some extra produce, he bought extra. He

was always about helping out the farmer.

“That really put the roots into our company and into supporting local and being local. So, today we are partner with tons of farmers and fishermen and different manufacturers. We are from Louisiana, so we want to support everybody in Louisiana. We have businesses in Mississippi and Alabama, so we are doing the same thing in those markets that we started doing here. It just helps so many different small businesses get up off the ground and overall it helps everyone,” he says.

Built-in mentors

Donny says his father and grandfather are his primary mentors in the business.

“That goes back to coming into the office every single day after school and listening to them talk, and then as I got older and got into the business, I was still doing the same thing. And then, once my grandfather passed away, now my dad comes into the office and it is us having those conversations that he and his dad were having.”

One of the things he learned from listening to his father and grandfather all those years—in addition to understanding more and more about the grocery business—was how to work with vendors to get the best results for both sides.

“I can remember a meeting my dad had with Mr. Chick Harrison, president of Evangeline Maid Bakery. They were longtime friends—they got to be friends through the

A young Donny Rouse working in the meat room.

Donny Rouse, CEO.

Donny Rouse and other members of the Young Presidents Organization, including Todd Graves, founder of Raising Cane’s, visit with LSU Football Coach Ed Orgeron.

business—and seeing how they interacted really showed me how to treat vendors to this day,” Donny says.

The lesson: Be nice and don’t ask for more than the other guy gets, and you know you have a fair shot at competing against the big guys.

“That’s definitely one relationship that I remember very well,” he says.

Donny also is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) Louisiana, a group for presidents of companies that are 45 and under (he’s 36).

“That’s helped me tremendously,” he says. “Not everyone’s in the grocery industry, so it gives you the opportunity to bounce ideas off of other people that aren’t competitors.”

Honing the training process

The Rouses way is to always say “yes” to customers’ needs and requests. That started with Anthony Rouse and has come down through the second generation (Donald and Tommy) to Donny and Ali.

But how do you teach that?

“Just this year we’ve invested a few million dollars into an internal training program, and that really makes a difference for when these young kids are coming out of high school or looking for their first job during high school,” according to Donny. “To keep

Rouses’ expansion: “a little bit more to the east, for sure, and slightly to the north in Mississippi and Alabama. We are going to continue to open up five to eight stores a year and then remodel some as well.”

them, you need to teach them and make them feel welcome.

“If you get a cashier and you just throw her at the checkout counter, she is not going to last very long because she’s not going to have the skill set needed to operate. But when you teach her and she is learning and she feels part of the team, she may stay through her whole high school career and then come back for other positions afterwards. We do that for every single position in the store. We now have different types of online testing and online educational material for each employee to be able to use to learn more about the job and to advance to the next level.”

That’s because every role is important to the shopper’s overall experience, he notes.

“The customer can have a great experience throughout the whole store, but when they get to the checkout line if there’s customers backed up or if the cashier is rude or not bagging their groceries correctly, that’s what they are going to remember. Our policy is not let a customer leave the store that’s disappointed, so it’s really everyone in the store’s responsibility to make sure the customers are happy. They need to be saying ‘hello, hi, welcome to Rouses, thank you for shopping at Rouses’—just following our policies and procedures.”

Growth expected in existing, new areas

Rouses recently opened stores in Orange Beach, Alabama, and Sulphur, Covington, Moss Bluff (near Lake Charles) and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Overall, six additions were made to the Rouses portfolio of locations this year for a total of 60 stores in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

The Baton Rouge market is a newer market for Rouses, but “we are happy with Baton Rouge, for sure,” Donny says, adding that the Baton Rouge store is a bit larger than the other three stores, by about 10,000 s.f. They all carry different products and display different products.

“We are featuring more local products in, say, the Lake Charles area that those customers are used to buying. And we are bringing in

Please see page 22

—Donny Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation Donny Rouse and wife Kara with their three children.

“I grew up in the small town of Houma, La where the first Rouses started. Very proud of how they have grown throughout the South. Awesome supermarket.”

M. Bourg

From page 20 items from other parts of the coast that we know are going to be very popular out there that they can’t really get.”

The Moss Bluff store currently is the westernmost location of Rouses, about three hours from headquarters; the Orange Beach, Alabama, store that opened this spring (formerly a Winn-Dixie) is the easternmost, about four hours from headquarters. The northernmost store is about an hour and a half away, in Zachary, Louisiana; the southernmost in Larose, Louisiana. The stores are concentrated along I-10.

Donny says that in the next few years, Rouses expects to expand “a little bit more to the east, for sure, and slightly to the north in Mississippi and Alabama.

“We are going to continue to open up five to eight stores a year and then remodel some as well,” he tells The Shelby Report. “We have our plans for the next three years that are pretty set, and we believe we can accomplish them.”

He says the economy in southeast Louisiana is starting to improve as the oil business is starting to come back. But, as the map shows, not all of the company’s stores are affected by it.

“We just manage it and do the best we can, and we’ve made the right decisions up to now for the business,” Donny says.

Also tied to the economy, he says Rouses is keeping an eye on minimum wage legislation although he feels the company has kept pace with that well.

“We feel that we pay our employees very fairly and they are happy,” he says. “We are voted the best place to work quite often.”

Like virtually all grocers, Rouses believes credit card fees are out of control.

“I think everyone in retail believes they are way too high and that something should be eventually done to correct that,” he says. “It hurts retailers.”

AWG a good fit for Rouses’ business model

He credits Rouses’ relationship with its wholesaler, Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), as a plus for its business.

“We have a great relationship with David Smith, the president of AWG. He opened up the Gulf Coast AWG Co-op in Pearl River, and having that relationship with somebody who’s in charge of an $8 billion company really helps us out.”

As a company that focuses on supporting local whenever possible, “We are glad to be buying our groceries out of Louisiana,” Donny says. “They do a good job for us. They work well with us. It’s similar to us having our own warehouse because we are speaking with them every single day. We are at the warehouse constantly and coming up with different plans, and we’ve been successful together.”

Please see page 24

Why do so many award-winning chefs shop at locally owned Rouses?

The same reason the chefs from neighborhood restaurants and poboy shops shop at Rouses: fresh local ingredients.

As Donny Rouse says, “If it’s grown, caught or made on the Gulf Coast, you’re sure to find it at Rouses.” , CEO

From page 22

He says Rouses works out its own product deals, talking to vendors directly. The AWG warehouse helps with the logistics of getting that product to the stores.

“Our model is working out perfect with AWG,” he says.

Donny added that the fact that AWG operates warehouses in many different areas of the country “gives us the opportunity to— when we do expand, say, to northern Louisiana—draw out of another warehouse.”

Supporting communities

Rouses spends millions of dollars sponsoring organizations and events across its marketing area, and “it’s different in every town,” he says.

In its hometown of Thibodaux, for instance, schools—elementary through high schools—are a big recipient of support, as is the Coastal Conservation Association, dedicated to saving the coastline.

Naturally for a food retailer, Rouses also supports food banks.

Rouses has a great working relationship with Second Harvest, Feeding the Gulf Coast and the Baton Rouge Food Bank, according to Amanda Kennedy, assistant to Donny Rouse who also works in the company’s marketing department. “That’s an outlet for us to help feed all those families in our communities that have food security issues or need a little extra support.”

The grocer also sponsors a number of food and wine events throughout the Gulf Coast. Those kinds of events help keep Rouses top of mind as a place to procure premier wines and cheeses and presents an opportunity for Rouses to partner with local chefs.

“They are important to Rouses,” Donny says.

Photos of chefs who tout Rouses products are displayed from ceiling hangers in stores.

“Every Rouses Market is designed specifically for the community it serves. We want our neighbors to feel proud of the Rouses where they live, work and shop.”

—Ali Rouse Royster, 3rd Generation

Video of compassionate Rouses clerk viewed more than 100,000 times

Twenty-year-old Jordan Taylor was stocking the refrigerated juice case at the Rouses store in Baton Rouge this summer when an autistic teen and his father came by the case for juice. Taylor noticed that even after the teen got his juice, he continued to watch what Taylor was doing, which prompted him to ask the teen if he wanted to help.

For 30 minutes, Taylor and the teen worked together to fill the case. The teen’s dad filmed much of the interaction. At first, he shared the video only with family. But soon it was on Facebook—where it has been shared hundreds of times— and then YouTube. And then it made national news.

Taylor’s mother, who also works for Rouses, says that’s just the way Jordan is, looking for ways to help others.

“It was amazing how it went viral,” Donny Rouse says. “You know, that’s not something that we can really teach our employees to do. We can preach to them, ‘hey, help the customer out, the answer is always ‘yes,’ but for him to do that on his own, that just shows that he is just a good kid growing up.”

The video is called “Employee helps autistic teen stock shelves.”

Since the video aired, Taylor has received a scholarship to return to college as well as a car from people impressed by his willingness to make someone else’s day better.

RAM INC., One of the Leading Perishable Food Brokers in the Southeast, Congratulates ROUSES MARKETS on being selected RETAILER OF THE YEAR. From the hard working, humble beginnings with Mr. Anthony, to the growth through the steadfast guidance of Mr. Donald and the explosive future with Donny at the helm, it is The American Success Story.

Along with a few of our valued manufacturers, we look forward to continuing to grow our business partnership together and wish all the best for Donny, Steve, Clint, James, Michelle, Michael and all the great folks at ROUSES MARKETS.

From the kitchen of Donny Rouse

These days, people are cooking less than they did in the past; they simply don’t have the time that they used to. And, certainly, not cooking for yourself is becoming easier and easier with all of the fresh prepared food in our stores.

I personally love to cook. I make dinner almost every night.

I’ve noticed that when I cook, I always come back to the dishes I grew up with. I eat quite a bit of rice and gravy—you can make a delicious gravy with the pan juices from almost any kind of meat or poultry. But my specialty is gumbo, a savory, thick-bodied middle ground between stew and soup.

Every Gulf Coast cook has their own foolproof gumbo formula. My particular version starts with a roux, which is equal parts flour and vegetable oil cooked gradually until the flour turns brown. (On weekends, I don’t like to use any shortcuts because I truly enjoy spending the whole day in the kitchen, but on weeknights I’ll use our Rouses Roux in a Jar.)

I use seafood and Louisiana Andouille, a meaty pork sausage that’s used to flavor countless classic Louisiana dishes. It’s a coarser-textured cousin of smoked sausage. Some people think you shouldn’t mix seafood and sausage in gumbo, but if the great Leah Chase can do it, so can you.

I serve my gumbo with a scoop or two of fluffy white rice, but in some Cajun households, they use a scoop of creamy potato salad.

RECIPE

Donny Rouse’s Seafood & Sausage Gumbo

Serves 12

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

1 cup vegetable oil

¾ cup all-purpose flour

6 celery stalks, diced

2 large onions, diced

2 bell peppers, stemmed, seeded and diced

6 garlic cloves, minced

Salt and pepper to taste

1 pound Andouille sausage, sliced in 1/2-inch thick rounds

4 quarts seafood stock

1 pound wild-caught Gulf shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 pound jumbo lump Gulf crabmeat

4 Gulf gumbo crabs, halved

1 pint shucked Gulf oysters and their juice

½ cup chopped parsley

½ cup diced green onion

Creole or Cajun seasoning, to taste

6 cups cooked white rice or potato salad, for serving

HOW TO PREP:

In a large, heavy-bottom pot or Dutch oven, warm oil over low heat. Add flour, a little bit at a time, stirring constantly, and cook for 30 minutes until you have a medium-brown roux.

Add celery, onion and bell pepper (the trinity), garlic (the pope), salt and pepper, and continue stirring until vegetables are wilted, about 15 minutes.

Add Andouille and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Slowly add seafood stock, one ladleful at a time, stirring after each ladleful is added. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add shrimp, crabmeat, gumbo crabs, oysters and oyster juice. Return to a boil and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Add parsley and green onion, and season with salt, pepper and Creole or Cajun seasonings. Serve over rice or potato salad.

The New Orleans Saints Have a Special Place in the Hearts of Fans Across the Gulf Coast

If you’re not from around here, it’s hard to explain just how much the Saints mean to the Gulf Coast. The Saints are the only professional football franchise on the Gulf Coast. Maryland, Ohio and Texas each have two teams. New York and Florida each have three. California has four—two of which play in Los Angeles.

On the Gulf Coast, we’re just one team—the Saints.

Even in Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa—where college football naturally dominates discussions—Sundays are reserved for the Saints. In cities and towns all across our region, from Houma to Lafayette and Morgan City to Gulf Shores, loyal Saints fans are glued to the TV set, and often tailgating outside the Dome, on gameday.

My family has always had season tickets to the Saints. I’m not ashamed to tell you I got goose bumps the first time I saw the team come out of the tunnel. As a lifelong fan and local business owner, I’m very proud to be an official sponsor.

—Donny Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation

Preserving and Protecting the Gulf Seafood Industry

Fishing has been a unique way of life for people here on the Gulf Coast for generations. As the Gulf Coast’s grocer, and avid fishers ourselves, we feel a particular commitment to preserve and protect our seafood industry, which plays such an important role in our culture and economy. But our commitment doesn’t end at our coast. We’re mindful of how all of our seafood is caught and farmed.

Our search for the best begins right here at home. Most of our seafood comes from local fishermen with whom we have close personal and professional relationships. We’re also a proud partner of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), whose mission is to conserve and protect our coast and waterways.

Seafood, like produce, has seasons. We boil Louisiana crawfish, Gulf shrimp and Gulf crabs in store using our exclusive blend of spices, lemons, garlic and onions. During crawfish season, which starts as early as late December, customers can get them hot from the pot 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day.

Preserving the traditions on land, too ANDOUILLE

This meaty, coarsertextured pork sausage is used in everything from slowcooked gumbos to Monday night red beans. It’s made with chunks of pork shoulder (often called the “Boston butt” cut of the hog) and simply spiced with garlic, curing salts and various peppers (usually black and cayenne).

BOUDIN

This spicy, rice-based pork sausage is perfect with a bottle of cold beer. The various styles include the liver-heavy varieties (with an earthy flavor) or those with more recognizable pork pieces. Or as a tasty variation, squeeze the tasty boudin filling from the casing, form it into spheres and pan-fry them for another snack treat: crispy boudin balls.

HOGSHEAD CHEESE

For the uninitiated, this common (and tasty) specialty can be a hard sell. It’s sausage-like, kind of gelatinous, and similar to a classic countrified French terrine, but pretty it ain’t. Tender meat from a long-boiled pig’s head (hence the name) is ground and cooled into a jellified loaf and served cold. If you haven’t tried it, give it a solid shot. And if you’d like to appreciate it in a different form, melt a block of hogshead cheese in a stovetop pot and eat it like a bowl of pig-based chili.

TASSO

The potent smoked meat known as tasso is basically spicy Cajun pork jerky and is a workhorse in local kitchens. Brined for preservation and smoked until flavors are highly concentrated, this amazing product is used sparingly, mostly as a flavoring agent in just about any slow-cooked stew or vegetable dish (greens or beans). A little goes a long way, but a good long way.

Taking Care of the Administrative Side— With Passion

Ali Rouse Royster completes the managing partner group at Rouses Markets. CEO Donny Rouse is her first cousin, and Chairman Donald Rouse is her uncle. Her father, Tommy Rouse, has retired from Rouses but still is an owner.

Like Donny and some of the other 17 cousins in their generation of Rouses, Ali worked at Rouses during summers and holidays while she was growing up.

She learned to be a store cashier and a back-office cashier in addition to helping her dad, former CFO who was heavily involved in the finance and accounting aspects of the family business as well as IT, when computers became integral parts of the grocery business.

During high school, she was a cashier at the Rouses store on Audubon in Thibodaux.

“I worked that for the summer and for some of my breaks I would go in and work a few shifts, but mostly I worked with my dad, helping him with whatever he needed. Or my grandpa from time to time; he would send me on little errands or little projects to do for him.”

Ever the innovator, her grandfather, founder Anthony Rouse, once had her research the feasibility of putting a travel agency in the store, back before the days of booking trips online. The idea ultimately was abandoned, but “whatever he wanted me to do, I was happy to do,” Ali says.

Ali graduated from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in business management.

While at LSU, she worked part-time as a bank teller since Rouses didn’t operate stores in Baton Rouge at the time. The bank liked that she had experience as a cashier. She says it was good to work outside the family business temporarily. It showed her how it felt to work somewhere where your name is not on the building, and also assured her that she had the work ethic to work for somebody else and be good at it.

“I took some different things away from it,” she says. “Their training system was very good, and their cash handling obviously was pretty good, being that they were a national bank.

Ali Rouse Royster.

I learned different things and different protocols and I brought some of that back.”

She joined Rouses full-time in 2004. She obtained her MBA from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux while she was working.

Today, Ali fills an administrative role at Rouses, with a wide range of responsibilities. She has duties related to finance, accounting and IT, working closely with CFO

Jeff Sherman and VP of IT Tommy Costales.

She also oversees customer service, something that has continued to be her responsibility over the years. But today that’s not just team members in the stores, “but also the website and through social media.”

She started the company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, and while the marketing department works on social media on a day-to-day basis now, Ali still keeps tabs on the company’s communication with customers.

“It comes through my email, and if I see something that might need a personal touch, I jump in,” she says. It may be somebody who sent a nice email or a not-so-nice email.

“I think it helps to keep that personal touch as we get bigger,” Ali added. “We need to be watching even those little things. Maybe this cashier did a great job or this cashier didn’t do a great job, and this customer is letting us know that.

“My family is still very cognizant of the fact that people have lots of choices to shop for groceries,” she says. “We’re very happy you shop with us, and we’re going to keep working every day to make sure that you want to keep coming and shopping at Rouses.”

This attitude goes back to Anthony Rouse Sr. The story is told that just prior to a new store opening, Anthony took the store director out to the parking lot and asked him what he saw out there.

The director replied, “An empty parking lot.”

Anthony said, “Remember that, because nobody has to show up today. There’s no guarantee that somebody’s going to walk through the doors and shop for groceries. We have to remember every day that that’s not a given. We know that we have to earn that.”

According to Ali, “That’s something that stays with us.”

A love of food and family

Anthony passed away in 2009, when Ali was in her 20s, and she has very fond memories of him. “He was a great man. He was a family man first, and he was a very hard worker. And that’s something that’s always stuck with me. His best times were when we were all gathered together. He just loved to be cooking.”

She says she can remember him at the stove, stirring spaghetti sauce or gumbo.

“He loved everybody coming together and eating.”

As a hard worker himself, even his granddaughter admits Anthony was “not an easy boss. Most good bosses are not easy bosses; they challenge you to make sure you’re doing everything you can do.”

He once had her to implement a new receiving system at one of the stores, which required her to be at the store when product was being received—4 or 5 a.m.

“He knew I liked to sleep late, but he told me, ‘It’s not forever, babe; you can do it. And it’s going to help everybody.’”

He once paid her a high compliment when she was working as an office cashier in one of the company’s Thibodaux stores. He was shopping in the store, and after he checked out, he came and stopped and talked to Ali.

“He said, ‘I didn’t know you were here, but I knew you were here.’ I said, ‘what do you mean?’ He said, ‘The store acts a little different when you’re here,’ and he said that means that you’re doing the right thing. I thought that was good. It felt like a good compliment from him. Now, I didn’t tell him this, but it was probably because he was shopping,” she says, laughing.

Ali says she learned a lot from her dad, too, “listening to him, learning from him sitting in meetings and just hearing him talk through his process. I learned a lot about registers and about networks and things like that.”

The goal is to “cost efficiently be the best at what we do, be secure and have all the function that we need,” she says.

Best quality, best price

Anthony’s two guiding principles for Rouses remain the cornerstones of the business today.

“We want two things from our vendors, and we want to bring two things to our customers: We want the best quality at the best price,” Ali says.

That means no games, gimmicks or “programs where you spend this much money and we’ll give you this,” she says. “He was always like, ‘Let’s cut the nonsense out. Without the bells and whistles, what’s the price? Let’s get there so that every day we can be competitive.”

Please see page 32

‘We’re doing a lot of things right’

Rouses Markets has found a sweet spot in the grocery business, according to Ali Royster.

“We’re doing a lot of things right in a business where a lot of people are doing a little bit right, but on the whole it’s mix-and-match. You can be a really good specialty retailer but your prices are seen as very high, or you’re a really good low-cost leader but your quality is seen as really low or your service is really low, or a mixture of both. But we have been striving for a very long time to do all of the things and to do them well—to provide a store that caters to the local community, which is very important everywhere but especially in the Gulf South where food is so important and so unique. A store where we can do that but you’re not sacrificing price and you’re not sacrificing your full basket-shop. It’s very hard to strike that balance, and it’s hard to do all of those things and we’re not going to be 100 percent all of the time. But we’re always striving to get there. I think our customers see that and they appreciate that, and I think that’s why they keep coming back.”

A young Ali Rouse at the computer.

If you know what your best cost is, then you know how to price the product, “and then we can compete with the Walmarts and the low-cost stores.”

Walmart had become a factor in the grocery business toward the end of Anthony’s career, and he knew “that’s who we’re going to compete against (and he said) we’re going to hang tight.”

When she was pursuing her MBA, she interviewed her grandfather for a class project. The interviews had to be videotaped, and Ali wasn’t crazy about the idea since she wasn’t skilled at video editing. But she did it because she had to.

“Thank goodness for this professor because otherwise I would just have this paper I wrote…Instead, I got to hear it in his own voice again, which was really nice. I should probably find that professor and write him a note.”

She says her grandfather talked about how “change is so important, and if you’re not changing and you’re not adapting to the climate that you’re in, you’re going to get left behind and you’re probably going to fail. That’s something that’s always stuck with me. And it always had before, but hearing him say it again really kind of reinforced that. You can’t just keep doing what you’re doing. You have to always be looking for how you can be better. What other people are doing, what works for them, what doesn’t—does that fit our model? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. He told me if you don’t change, you’ll be left behind.”

Not afraid to try

As early as the year 2000, Rouses was testing e-commerce, Ali says.

The summer after she graduated from high school, she spent the summer at the Rouses on North Canal in Thibodaux, cataloging products for e-commerce. Her dad Tommy believed it was important to give it a try. Rouses partnered with a third party on the service, going as far as to put sections up front where customers could pick up their orders. Signage was put up, too.

The company Rouses partnered with went out of business before the service actually launched, so it was a failed experiment. But then again, “it never took off for anybody back then, but the market’s changed now,” she says.

Earlier this year, Rouses implemented a new online shopping and delivery program.

Rouses Now Offers Online Shopping and Same‑Day Delivery

Rouses this year introduced online grocery shopping and same-day delivery to the majority of its Gulf Coast stores through Instacart and Shipt.

“Now if you don’t have time to come to Rouses, Rouses can come to you,” said Donny Rouse, CEO.

Rouses’ Instacart service launched March 8 in New Orleans (North and South Shore), Baton Rouge, Gonzales, Houma, Thibodaux and their suburbs. Customers can order Rouses products, including fresh fruits and vegetables, seafood, meat, and deli and bakery items online at rouses. com or through the Instacart app. Their order arrives at their homes or offices in as little as an hour.

After the initial launch, Instacart expanded services to additional Rouses Markets across the Gulf Coast.

Shipt began rolling out same-day delivery to Rouses customers March 27 at stores in the New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette markets. Shipt’s marketplace at shipt. com/rouses allows customers to shop the in-store assortment of products online, noting any preferences, before choosing a delivery window, in as soon as one hour.

“We wanted something seamless,” said Rouse. “Partnering with Instacart and Shipt allows us to offer an online shopping experience that fits our busy customers’ needs while matching the quality and service they find in our stores.”

Delivery was first of several e-commerce options Rouses is launching. A click-and-collect curbside program now is being tested in a handful of stores in the Thibodaux area.

“We like to test in Thibodaux because there’s lots of us to test and give feedback right away,” Ali Royster says.

Stores in Houma will follow, she said.

“And then we’re going to do it at our store in the Central Business District of New Orleans (on Baronne Street) because we’ve built that (area into that store), too.

“That’s going to be a big deal for them,” Ali adds. “We’ll even have a little separate entrance for them, so that way people can pop in and get what they need and get out or the people can load it for them.”

Instacart is Rouses’ partner for click-and-collect, and “it’s going well,” she adds.

Ali, a working mother of three children ranging in age from 1 to 4, uses Rouses’ delivery and pickup services to make her life easier.

“When we started piloting it, I said, ‘I’m a good example of somebody who needs to use this.’ So, as a customer I was using it and helping to work out some kinks. And

Exciting opportunities ahead

“The plans are to continue to grow,” says Ali, echoing the comments of her fellow managing partners. “We’re very excited about opportunities to grow. We have a lot of places where we feel like we can be a very good fit.”

Customers often ask when Rouses is going to be building a store in their area, and whether small community or big community, Rouses is open to opportunities to build or buy stores, within reason. (People in California have asked when a Rouses might open there.)

“We’re from a small community so we understand that small communities can be a great fit for us; in urban areas we try to find the best neighborhoods for our stores,” Ali says.

—Ali Royster

I’m still doing that.”

In addition to busy families, grocery delivery also is a godsend for elderly or disabled people. If they are not able to order for themselves, friends or family members can place the order and have them delivered to their door.

Ali says she’s not sure what portion of Rouses’ business will eventually migrate to online, “but I think it’s an offering that we need to make to stay relevant and to keep the customer coming back.”

The thrill of the grand opening

Ali says the most fun/exciting/nerve-wracking part of life at Rouses is opening new stores.

“It’s the anticipation of it, the buildup to it, and the night before, making sure everything’s good. I love that few minutes before the store opens when everything is perfect down the aisles. It looks like you’re in a TV show grocery shopping because there’s nothing off the shelf. My dad always said I’d much rather see it all picked through because that means somebody shopped!”

She says every time a new store opens, there’s “at least a little something different that we’ve improved on since the last one.”

While most of the six stores that opened this year share the same footprint, departments sometimes are in different locations—fresh departments to the left of the entrance vs. the right, for instance.

Rouses also takes “the best things that we’ve done new,” Ali says, and incorporates them into older stores.

“We ask, ‘how can we bring that into this older footprint and how will that work and how can we make sure that’s a good fit and that we’ll still be able to deliver the same experience?’

“We don’t want to spend money just to spend money, but a lot of times we see a really big return for the dollars we spent in remodels,” she says.

It’s important when entering a new market, like Lake Charles, to make sure “we’re in the exact right spot for our first one, because the first one’s going to make or break

“My family is still very cognizant of the fact that people have lots of choices to shop for groceries. We’re very happy you shop with us, and we’re going to keep working every day to make sure that you want to keep coming and shop at Rouses.”

you,” she says. “And we want to make sure we have a plan to where we can expand more because one store in Lake Charles is not going to be a great fit for us. We want to be able to have multiple stores in that area and then fill in some gaps afterward.”

In the Lafayette area, Rouses started with a Youngsville store in 2009. Two more since have opened, and “we’re still looking in Lafayette and those surrounding communities.”

A store next year is planned for New Iberia, an outlying area of Lafayette.

“We don’t feel like we’re a high-income shop or a low-income shop; we feel like we cater to everyone. Everyone eats, and we’re here to help put food on the table for everybody. The opportunities are endless,” Ali says.

Decision-making simplified

One of the benefits of a family-owned business is that decisions can be made quickly. If something needs to be decided, the managing partners talk it over and take action, knowing that whatever the result, they are ultimately responsible.

“Donald, Donny and I are all here in Thibodaux, and if we need to make a decision quickly, we either get on the phone or we text each other; we get there. It’s not as hard to rally up the troops when it’s your family,” she says.

Decisions also are made with a longer-term vision in mind, she adds. While they definitely have to pay attention to the company’s bottom line, they don’t have shareholders to answer to or try to satisfy.

“We can look at things more as a whole and make decisions that are either shortterm or long-term or a mixture of both.”

Passion needed to perpetuate the business

“Part of being able to keep up a multi-generational growing company—which we are and which is not the most common thing you’ll ever see—is that the passion has to stay there,” Ali says. “We’ve seen that with some of the companies we’ve bought, where

F rom the archives

they don’t have enough know-how or enough passion in that next generation, or maybe they’re just ready to get out.”

Ali and Donny are two of 17 grandchildren of Anthony and Joyce Rouse; three more work in the business. They are Chris and Nick Acosta, sons of Tim Acosta, director of marketing and advertising, and Cindy Rouse Acosta, daughter of Anthony and Joyce Rouse; and Blake Richard, son of Jeaneen Rouse, daughter of Anthony and Joyce Rouse. Chris is a grocery category manager; Nick is the fresh meat category manager; and Blake is an assistant store director.

Ali’s husband Billy Royster, whom she met in high school, is a senior accountant at Rouses.

While many of them worked in the business when they were younger, many of them are doing something different today. Those who stayed in the business continue to love the business, she says, adding that the third generation of a family business often gets a bad rap. There’s a saying that the first generation starts it, the second generation expands it and the third generation kills it, she adds.

Nothing could be further from the truth at Rouses.

“We love what we do, and I can’t imagine doing anything else every day,” she says. “It’s a pleasure to come to work every day and to see the business that my family started grow so much. To be a part of that is an honor. We’re here. This is what we want to do. I know Donny feels the same way; there’s nothing else he wants to do. We’re in the grocery business.”

This store in Lafayette opened in 2011.

Rouses Honored for Hiring Those with Disabilities

In 2015, Rouses Markets was honored as Employer of the Year by the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Disability Affairs for actively recruiting, hiring and accommodating employees with disabilities. The grocery chain was recognized at the Governor’s Outstanding Leadership in Disabilities Awards ceremony that November at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge.

Scott A. Ledet, a service clerk at the Rouses Market on Audubon Street in Thibodaux, and Alexander J. Tindle, a service clerk at Rouses Market in Denham Springs, joined Steve Galtier, Rouses’ director of human resources, and Ali Rouse Royster, third-generation managing partner, on stage to accept the award.

HR Director Galtier and his department work directly with Rouses’ store directors to hire and train special needs team members.

“We have more than 50 special needs team members with special jobs,” Royster said. “Providing job opportunities to people with disabilities is one of Rouses’ core values and is especially important to my family and me.”

Royster’s brother, Matthew, was born with methylmalonic acidemia and homocystinuria, cblC type, a rare genetic disorder.

The company’s dedication to hiring employees with disabilities started long before Matthew was born.

“We have team members with special needs who have been with our company for more than 30 years,” Royster said. “They’re as committed to working for us as we are to working with them.”

From left: Allison Rouse Royster, managing partner, Rouses; Kyle Soignet, vocational director, Lafourche ARC; Jamie Tindle; Steve Galtier, director of human resources, Rouses; and, in front, Alex Tindle, Rouses’ service clerk.

Ali Rouse Royster, Billy Royster and their three children. From page 33

Newest Executive Brings Passion for Developing Company Leaders

When Steve Black moved to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, he saw himself and his family living there happily ever after. Now, his happily-ever-after consists of crawfish, king cakes and down-home Southern cooking. As the president and COO of Rouses Markets since December 2016, Black has found a new home in Louisiana and new family with Rouses.

Starting in the grocery business in 1977, right out of high school, Black worked his way up from entry level to executive level. In his last seven years in the industry, before his move to Rouses, he had concentrated on the natural/organic side of the business. He brought that expertise with him to Rouses, adding to the company’s innovations in the natural/ organic and fresh areas.

Black also brought strong leadership qualities, which he has been sharing with the Rouses executives and other team members. Following the deaths of his parents, about a year apart, he began a leadership blog sharing his experiences and what he has learned through various books on the subject. It is called “After Your Last Breath: Intentional Legacy Building” (found at afteryourlastbreath.com). His weekly email, which includes leadership nuggets, has become popular throughout the company. Teaching leadership has become a passion for him.

Celebrating Rouses’ selection as The Shelby Report’s 2018 Southeast Retailer of the Year, Black sat down with Editor-in-Chief Lorrie Griffith.

Q: How did you get to Rouses? What was your career path?

A: I started in the grocery business in Oklahoma in 1977, full time right out of high school. I worked my way up from produce manager, assistant manager and store manager of three different stores with United. Then I moved into the home office and became the head of IT, then head buyer. It’s a family-owned business, three generations. Very similar to Rouses in that part of it. I spent about 27 years there.

I moved to Alabama in 2008 as the SVP of center store sales and merchandising for Bruno’s, then to Arizona as the VP of IT and marketing and later operations for Sunflower Farmers Markets. After the Sprouts merger in 2012, where they bought Sunflower, I became VP of operations for the combined companies, then CIO/CMO for Sprouts. In 2014, I became president of Lucky’s Markets in Colorado. In December of 2016, I became president/COO of Rouses Markets. I am beginning my 42nd year in the business.

During high school, I worked for a small grocer there in Clinton, Oklahoma. I worked there from ages 12 to 15. My mom owned a convenience store in the town we lived in, and I worked for her during high school. Once the grocery business is in your blood, it usually stays in your blood. My initial goal out of high school was to be a store director for United and live happily ever after in Clinton, Oklahoma.

Were these opportunities you sought out, to move to these different positions?

I was with United most of my career in Oklahoma and they were 50 percent owned by Hale-Halsell Co. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They had some financial troubles, so the future didn’t look too bright there. I had some connections with Bruno’s. I knew a guy, which is usually the way that works—the president and CEO of Bruno’s at the time, Kent Moore. I was involved in the project of decoupling the Bruno’s offices from the Bi-Lo offices. Lone Star Funds was the owner, and they had an opportunity to sell Bruno’s but couldn’t because Bruno’s didn’t have a home office. So he and I and some other people came in and created two corporate home offices.

After that, I was president of Lucky’s Markets and living in the Rocky Mountains. My wife and daughter loved the Rockies, as I do, and we were going to live happily ever after. And I got a call from a recruiter (about the job at Rouses) and I told her thanks, but I’m not interested…But upon her insistence, I went ahead and had a call with Donny (Rouse), and then I was very intrigued. The rest, as they say, is history. Once you get to know Donald and Donny and the other family members and leadership team, and get to see the stores and the culture that’s three generations deep, I just felt the calling deep inside of me that I wanted to be part of this.

It really is special, for a lot of reasons. To hear the stories that Donald tells about his dad (Anthony Rouse Sr.) and how hard a

Steve Black

worker he was, that he worked harder than anybody else. I’ve heard lots of those stories, and about Donald as well, during his prime years here at Rouses. Donny got to witness both of those generations—his grandfather and his father. You can just feel that when you come here and you go in the stores and you walk in the stores.

And, of course, when I saw some of the stores I was just amazed at how beautiful they were. Having been in the conventional side of the business for a number of years—I spent the last seven years in the natural/organic side—I felt like the conventional world was challenged and couldn’t really win the retail weekly shopping experience. I really liked being on the natural/organic and fresh side. My past experience with the conventional side (made me feel like they’re) really handicapped by the CPG brands. By the time I fulfilled all my contracts, I really couldn’t do a whole lot. I could be as creative as I wanted to be in two boxes on the whole ad...it really felt stifling. But, again, that’s my past experience and it’s not that way here at Rouses. We have a different model here, and the CPG brands, it’s a good partnership. And the way we handle our managed funds accounts, we can really pull the levers and push them and really impact the business. We like to be first to market, you know. And of course, the fresh departments here at Rouses are stunning. When I found out we had registered florists in all of our stores, that’s something. Our floral departments, you could take them and create a separate florist in any town and they’d be very successful. We do funerals, we do weddings, we do proms. That blew me away.

Then when you get to the bakery and all of our incredible bakery cakes...so many of them are made in-house. A lot of supermarket bakery items look good but then when you eat them they don’t taste good; ours taste amazing. We sell over 400,000 king cakes a year for Mardi Gras. I had never experienced it in my career before, and man, that’s been fun. Between king cakes and crawfish and the whole foodie culture…I thought coming from the whole natural and organic side and living in Colorado, north of Boulder up in the mountains, you really think that’s a foodie mecca. But man, not like down here. It’s totally different.

That was one of the questions in my interview—what do people do for fun here? Because I was used to going to Major League Baseball games and NFL games in Phoenix and Denver. Down here, we get together on the weekends and we cook and we eat and we celebrate family. It really is refreshing here; it’s so much calmer, the way it used to be. That’s why I think I felt such a kind of a calling to come here and just be a part of it. And the company’s filled with over 6,700 dedicated, hard-working, smart, friendly people. They love serving customers and their fellow team members, and good food’s just a bonus.

Rouses was founded nearly 60 years ago. What are some of the principles Anthony Rouse Sr. started the company with that continue today?

It’s posted in our store support office and around the stores: Best quality! Best price! He started out in the grocery business and understood both of those principles. He was a servant leader before it was a leadership model. He worked harder than anyone around him and set a level of humility that still lives today.

And I think that does resonate, not only throughout the company as part of the culture, but I feel like it’s genuine and there’s not a lot of politics. We have the normal business procedures that we have to follow and all that kind of stuff. If it makes common sense and it’s good for the customer, it’s “yes,” and if it’s good for the team member then it’s “yes.” We don’t have to have these long, drawn-out RFP models on making sure. Sometimes you can just study it so long, you miss the opportunity to just do it.

Do you see it as your role to promote leadership training?

I think that’s part of the evolution. In my career early on in the grocery business, if you weren’t getting the job done, you just needed to come in early and stay later and work seven days a week. Well, that doesn’t work anymore. So you do have to truly create other leaders. When leaders are focused on leadership and creating other leaders, they’re multiplying themselves. One of the books we shared early on with the team was “Multipliers,” a book by Liz Wiseman. You’re either a multiplier or a diminisher. There are six diminisher traits and we’re not always complete diminishers, but we’ll be accidental diminishers if, for instance, we’re micromanaging people.

John Maxwell says if you think you’re leading your team and you turn around and look behind you and there’s no one there, you’re really just taking a walk. And I think a lot of people, myself included, have been guilty of that. That’s part of my question, in my particular role. I do think it’s very critical.

How has the corporate culture at Rouses changed since you’ve been here?

Most companies like us—we’re a billion-dollar retailer—you’d have an executive team. I don’t like the term “executive team,” I don’t like

“corporate offices,” so we call our executive team the coaches’ group. We’re the head coaches.

We did three things: We changed the name of the building (to the Store Support Center); we call ourselves coaches; and we renamed the merchandisers “trainers.” Because they need to be out in the stores training people; they don’t need to be going in and just building a display and making something look pretty and leave. They’ve got to train.

I know that probably sounds simple, but to get the corporate out of and off the building, to get the executive out of the leadership team, really is a little bit humbling. We can accomplish anything if we’ll stay hooked at the arms instead of pointing fingers. Donny has hired every one of the coaches himself—he either promoted somebody or hired somebody—and he’s proud of that because it’s kind of his team. And if we’re all handpicked by Donny, then we need to honor him in the way we act toward each other and we have to be loyal to that team. A lot of times you don’t find that in big business. Usually everybody’s so protective of the team they lead that they (become adversarial with) other teams, and that’s not right. We’ve had some painstaking conversations and honest and hard conversations, but when we walk out of a room, we’re one voice or we don’t walk out of a room.

And what I’ve tried to share with my guys, too, is when we’re inside the building, each one of us is one vote. Obviously, we all have our titles and our titles are for outside the building or outside the company, so people know who to contact, basically, but when we get in a room—if there’s 10 or 12 of us around a table—I can give my opinion, but it’s one vote. Most of the time when a president or CEO makes a statement, everybody else just shuts up. It doesn’t work that way here. I don’t mind telling you I’ve kind of been outvoted on several things, because it’s not about me, it’s about what’s best for the company. What’s best for our customer, what’s best for the future? I never came on board here and claimed to know everything. I’m growing.

Please see page 38

Can you explain about how merchandisers need to be trainers?

We have six regions, and each one of those regions has what we now call “trainers” in all the fresh departments. We’ll have somebody in produce, somebody in meat, somebody in floral, somebody in culinary (bakery and deli). They’ll be responsible to go in and train those stores or open a new store in that market, or if we have a new department manager and they need to be trained. We’ve got a new training program that we put together this year. You have to actually get certified, get a training certificate, to hold certain positions in the company. That’s been a pretty big deal, a focus, for us this year.

If a store needs to get reset, you’ve got to go in and train people on how to set the cases and then do the ordering, which is one of the top three keys to success. But you’ve also got to know the financial side of it and have to answer for the financial results. You have to understand what I call “grocery math.” We do spend a lot of time with our team trying to teach grocery math and how to be successful. We have a responsibility to the company and the family to make these stores as profitable as possible. They’ve taken a big risk in putting these stores in, so it’s our job to make them successful. And it does take all of us.

How have you seen Rouses change with the times since you’ve been here?

As the president of Rouses, my primary role is coaching leadership. In the early days of the grocery business, success was nothing but pure grit. If you couldn’t get the job done, you came in earlier or stayed later. If someone failed, you let them go. And a seven-day work week was the norm. Today, to be successful, you simply can’t do it that way. You must figure out how to multiply your knowledge of the business to all those you lead, give them the allowance of non-fatal failure, draw out greatness they didn’t know they had and reward them generously for it. You have to focus on the positives, correct the negatives and build relationships— with team members, vendors and customers.

During my first 100 days, one of the things I communicated to our team was that everybody, at the end of every day, typically has two questions: What’s for dinner, and how was your day?

My personal challenge is that I want to determine, at my breakfast table, that I’m going to give my team something good to say at their dinner table by coming in, coaching them, helping them, just communicating with them and asking questions on how can we get better. Because, as you know, there’s probably a lot of dinner table conversation that’s not very pleasant toward the boss in a lot of companies. I want me and our team to give people something good to say at the end of the day.

amount of expense is, and that’s on purpose. A lot of companies, they’ll spend a lot of money on a store support office or a home office and, well, there’s no people with shopping carts walking around in here, buying groceries.

I’ve seen four major disruptors in the last 40 years in the business. The first being Walmart, then natural and organic, then a stealth disruptor, the dollar stores, and now—this is going to be the biggest one any of us have ever dealt with in our entire life in this current generation—Amazon, which really engulfs the whole online world. Amazon’s market cap grew more since December 2017 than Walmart is worth today. They’re a trillion dollars today, market cap. They grew more in the last eight months than Walmart’s worth. As retailers, we better get our pencils sharpened and our computers updated and our stores set properly to deal with what’s going to be. We all thought, my generation, that Walmart disrupted everything. We’re not even ready, I’m not talking just the grocery business, I’m talking all retail, every retailer on the planet is not ready for what Amazon’s positioned to do…We have to figure out a quick game plan. Shrink the box, expand on fresh, and offer delivery. We’re doing delivery with Instacart and Shipt and doing pickup.

With those four disruptors, you have to be the best on price, on natural and organic, the best in the dollar items and you’d better be active online. If you can recognize those four disruptors and have a strategy and plan of attack, you can win.

Brick and mortar is never going away, completely, but it is going to change dramatically. The conventional grocer today, brick and mortar, won’t look anything like it’s going to look like in five years. It’s not. There’s going to be a lot of casualties, especially in the independent grocery channel in the next five, 10 years because so many people are locked into leases and locked into CPG contracts that they can’t get out of, so they don’t have the flexibility that a company like Rouses has. Change is upon us. Our goal here at Rouses is to be the best in all four of those areas.

Mr. Donny is a man of few words, but powerful words. He has been able to sit quietly and watch how his grandfather and father operated and he’s got their values deep inside who he is today. He’s a thinker and a processor of information and not a quick decision maker. And that’s a good thing. For him, it’s all about the right decision, not just a quick decision.

In my 42 years, I’ve seen what I call the Three Great Separators of people. The first one was technology. When the computer age happened, you either got on board or were left behind. The second one is leadership. It’s not what you can do, but what your team can do. You have to be hungry to be a better leader so that you can treat people like you want your mother treated or your brother treated or your sister. And the third is an insatiable positive attitude. Retail grocery is not for the weak. It’s hard work, both physically and mentally, and the only way you truly survive is by having a positive attitude.

I’ve had people work for me who failed. And when they failed, what made them fail? They either didn’t know technology and couldn’t do the job, or they didn’t believe in leadership. A lot of people say, “oh, leadership, it’s a lot of “Kumbaya” stuff. No, it’s not. Obviously, a positive attitude is important. You never want to be the VP of “no.” And that’s a core value of Rouses—the answer is yes. And the answer is yes. The customer comes in and asks you something and the answer’s yes. If you don’t think you can give them a yes, then you go get a manager and let them give them a yes. That does resonate.

Why has Rouses been able to continue to grow in an industry where there has been much attrition and consolidation over the years?

From Mr. Anthony to Mr. Donald and now Mr. Donny, local, new innovation and true customer service is core to Rouses. I get this from Mr. Donald. It’s really a “no fear” mentality as well. I’m not scared of anybody coming in (as competition). I don’t care who comes in, because we’re going to win. We’re going to figure out how to win and we’re going to figure out quicker how to win. We are as competitive as anyone on price and, over the years, the family has not spared any expense on creating very nice stores that are truly a pleasure to shop. The store support office is where the least

How does being family-owned impact the way Rouses is run, in your opinion?

The one thing I love the most about that is that we can move on a dime. We don’t get bogged down in corporate minutiae. If a new trend pops up or we create one, we’re all over it. We also have the humble roots that go back three generations and understand that we take care of our team members and they take care of our customers, and in that order. It’s really pretty simple.

What is the most fun part of your job?

I love going out in the stores and just walking around talking to our team members and customers. I like to be in stores, talking to our team members. I’m then able to come back to the store support office and help make that happen.

—Steve Black, president and COO

Anything you’d like to add?

Mr. Donny is a man of few words, but powerful words. He has been able to sit quietly and watch how his grandfather and father operated and he’s got their values deep inside who he is today. He’s a thinker and a processor of information and not a quick decision-maker. And that’s a good thing. For him, it’s all about the right decision, not just a quick decision. The thing I appreciate and respect the most about Mr. Donny is that he’s always professional in the way he treats vendors, team members and especially customers. He’s a great example for us all.

We are excited about the store growth we are experiencing right now and anticipate that to continue for years to come. We believe it’s very similar to the “Field of Dreams” mantra: If you build it, they will come.

Why, in your opinion, is Rouses a great choice for our Retailer of the Year honor?

Humbly speaking, because they deserve it. There’s been a lot, a lot of years of hard work from Mr. Anthony and Mr. Donald, Donny and other family members. We’ve got a lot of people who’ve been with the company since they’ve been working. Clint Adams, our VP of operations, has been with the company 30 years. We’ve got store directors who have been with the company a long, long time, and they’ve worked hard for a lot of years. Everybody is humbly honored, getting this 2018 Southeast Retailer of the Year award. It’s a big honor.

For me, it’s nice to see the company get that because they’ve worked so hard and done so many things right. Rouses will celebrate 59 years in business this next year and it speaks to the heart of what America is all about. A place where hard work and perseverance really does pay off. To get this recognition is just icing on the cake!

Tim Acosta and His Team Manage Rouses’ Message, Image

Tim Acosta, director of marketing and advertising, is a member of the second generation of Rouses leadership. He became part of the family 35 years ago when he married Cindy Rouse, one of two daughters of Anthony and Joyce Rouse. Two of Tim and Cindy’s three sons, Chris and Nick, work at Rouses; the other, Cody, chose the law school route (but he did work at the stores growing up). Chris now is a grocery category manager for Rouses Markets; Nick is the fresh meat category manager.

Acosta graduated from high school in 1981. He had started college that fall and again was working in his dad’s sugarcane fields to earn money. The harvest, as usual, ended in December, but Acosta’s expenses didn’t, so he began looking for a part-time job. He was dating Cindy at the time, and her dad told him, “Why don’t you come to work for us over here?”

At the time, Rouses was opening its third grocery store, the store it acquired from another grocer in Raceland—Mr. Anthony’s first store “down the Bayou.”

Acosta started helping stock the store with groceries prior to its opening in January 1982.

Acosta remembers working with Tim Landry, assistant manager of the Raceland store at the time (a store director in Raceland still today), to get the store ready for opening.

After a couple of semesters of college, “I just started working more full-time and less college. Then it began to be just all work, full time, no college,” he says.

His education was on-the-job, “learning everything from the ground up,” he says.

But that was not what he and Cindy wanted for their boys, believing they needed an education to succeed in the world they grew up in.

“I don’t regret it for me, not finishing (college)…but I made sure my sons didn’t do what I did,” he says, adding that they earned not only bachelor’s degrees but also master’s degrees.

But at Rouses, they were like anybody else, not grandsons of the founder.

“They started from the ground up to get them where they are today,” he says.

As is common in a family business, Acosta learned how to do everything in the store. In addition to stocking the shelves, he ran a cash register and, when the store was closed for half a day on Sundays, he helped clean and wax the floors.

After that, he started learning the back-door receiving process at the warehouse, checking in vendors—“the bread guys, Coke guys, beer guys…”

He was reassigned to Rouses #2 in Houma, the former Piggly Wiggly that was across the street from Mr. Anthony and his cousin’s first store, Ciro’s. They closed Ciro’s, which was about 7,000 s.f., when the Rouses were able to acquire the Piggly Wiggly, which was about four times as large.

Acosta was tasked with running the back door at Rouses #2, as he was deemed trustworthy and had been trained in receiving.

“Everybody in the grocery business knows your back door and your front door are where you make it; you have to make sure you’re paying for everything and nobody is stealing from you,” Acosta says.

He handled receiving at the store for a couple of years before helping open #4, a ground-up store on the east side of Houma. He and Cindy got married in July of 1983, and the store opened that fall.

Acosta was among those who witnessed Mr. Anthony acting as the contractor of new Rouses stores.

“He saved a lot of money back then doing everything himself along with some friends of his,” Acosta says. “His best friend was in

A young Tim Acosta.

Tim Acosta today.

the air condition/refrigeration business. Another good friend was a carpenter; another was an electrician.”

That store featured Rouses’ first computerized system for direct store delivery receiving. Acosta worked with Tommy Rouse on getting that system implemented.

“That was the original personal computer with the floppy disk and all that,” Acosta says. “That’s how I started learning computers; I didn’t know anything about computers at the time.”

His next step, which would lead to his current role, was to begin working closely with Donald on pricing and advertising. They created the weekly ads and then Acosta proofed them to make sure all the details were right.

“Once I started working with Donald with pricing and ads, I’ve just had more advertising fall under me,” Acosta says. “I was trained by the best.”

He and Donald were the whole of the marketing and advertising department for several years; today, the team is edging closer to 10 people. In addition to Acosta, it includes three graphic designers that work on ad layouts, circulars and store signage. The team for social media—“which is a big deal today,” Acosta acknowledged—is made up of two people; and with Rouses’ entry into the e-commerce business this year, there now is an e-commerce manager.

Following Rouses entrée into online ordering and delivery and its current testing of curbside pickup at some locations, next up will be digital coupons for shoppers.

Acosta’s department also includes Creative Director Marcy Nathan, who worked for an outside advertising agency representing Rouses until 2014, when the grocer got big enough to need someone in-house.

“We decided, as we continued to grow, that we needed to do all this (advertising and public relations) in-house ourselves. That’s when Marcy came on board,” he says.

He also admits that growing his team has come with some challenges for him personally.

“We were so used to doing everything ourselves through the years, but now as we grow…for me, it’s learning to delegate. I’m starting to do more of that now, but I had a little bit of a time with that earlier,” Acosta says.

When Steve Black came in as president and COO, “one of the first things he told me after watching me for a few months, was I know what you’re doing, I’ve been there, but you can’t do it all yourself.

“I have a great team with me,” Acosta added. “I enjoy working with my team.”

Staying true to the mission

Starting with Ciro’s in 1960, the grocer has stayed true to the mission through to today, Acosta says: “customer service, fresh product, knowing the neighbors, knowing the customers. The same practices that we still do today were all started by Mr. Rouse then. No matter what else we’ve done, we’ve always taken care of our customers.

“Anthony Rouse’s thing was best quality, best price. That’s what he always said and what he believed in.”

The “best price” part of that philosophy required additional scrutiny when Walmart started its incursion into the grocery business with its Supercenters in 1988 (the first one opened in Missouri that year).

Rouses, which already had faced chain competition from the likes of Winn-Dixie and A&P, didn’t view Walmart with fear and trepidation, as many did, but rather with a determination to keep its customers.

In plain South Louisiana talk, Acosta says, “We knew we weren’t going to go nowhere because we were going to be right on top of it.”

“A lot of people back then were like, ‘whoa, Walmart, scary, go hide.’ But we knew that we had to change the way we did business, the way we went to market. We were not going to go away. Other people are going to go, not us. So we began price checks, and if we didn’t have the right cost on an item to be competitive with them, we talked to our wholesaler and to the vendors on what we needed to do to get right.”

In true “know your enemy” fashion, Rouses executives would drive for hours to visit Supercenters as they opened up within driving distance.

“Even before they had the Houma store, we would go and visit wherever. The first ones they had open up close to us, we were driving for hours and hours going there,” he says.

A love of food

The grocery business is a perfect fit for Tim Acosta and many others at Rouses, as “we love to eat and we love to cook.”

Acosta and wife Cindy, who worked at Rouses when she was younger but stopped to raise their family, also love to travel. Most recently they went to Italy as part of the development of Rouses’ partnership with the Italian Trade Agency to add products imported from Italy—cheeses, cured meats, preserves, wines and sparkling mineral water—to all its stores.

“We’re foodie people. We love trying things, we love the experiences… traveling, exploring, finding new things,” Acosta says.

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Acosta cited an instance of Rouses sticking to its guns on having competitive prices. When the grocer was opening a new store in Morgan City, a major soft drink vendor was not willing to give Anthony Rouse the pricing he was looking for. The store opened without that bottler’s products on the shelf. It wasn’t long before the two parties came to an agreement, but it was the grocer’s way of showing it would stand firm on that issue, Acosta says.

“We just wanted the best price, every day, from the vendor, from the manufacturer, whoever it was. We didn’t charge money for ads, nothing for slotting. Everything we got, we put it into the cost of goods to get our customers the best quality and the best price.

“We changed, we adapted. We were able to change with the changing times,” he added.

Ironically, being successful in the changing times involved staying with what was tried and true.

“We never got away from our basic business philosophy of taking care of customer service. ‘The answer is yes,’ as Mr. Anthony taught. If the customer is looking for something, we took them to it in the store. If they wanted something and we didn’t have it, we told them we would get them a rain check. Whatever it took, we made it right for that customer. If we didn’t have a product, we would get right on it. We still do that today as well.”

In touch

Rouses “stays in constant touch with our stores through our management setup,” Acosta says.

The company’s six RDOs oversee stores in a particular area.

“They’re constantly getting feedback. The phone line is always open, the doors are always open. There’s not a whole lot of red tape; no hoops to jump through.”

If it’s an issue that can’t be dealt with by the president or VPs and needs to be addressed by the managing partners, Donald, Donny and Ali are accessible to make a decision to move on, according to Acosta.

He has been impressed seeing Donny and Ali grow up in the business and now in leadership roles.

He recalls Donny sitting in Donald’s office before school, listening to Donald and his dad, Mr. Anthony, talk about business.

“He was always in there, so he heard all they were talking about. He listened to his grandfather,

listened to his father, listened to his Uncle Tommy. He was just constantly absorbing all that.”

Donny is a young CEO at 36, but Acosta says he has what it takes to be in that senior leadership role now.

‘A great American success story’

Acosta rightly calls Rouses “a great American success story. It’s local, it’s the American Dream. You work hard at it, see the company grow…Nothing is given to you. You’ve got to work every day, and if you continue to do that, you will accomplish anything. I think that’s what we have learned as a company as we’ve grown.”

He, as others in the company, expect nothing but growth ahead.

“As far as the future, we’re constantly looking, traveling the country, trying to see what we’ve got to do to bring our customers the best. If somebody is doing it on the East Coast, West Coast, and it’s not being done here, we want to be the first to bring it to our customers down here. That’s our vision.”

“I’m so happy to have ‘family’ here in Mobile, Alabama. I’m from Eunice but came to love Rouses in Thibodaux where we lived before moving to Mobile. We missed it so much we used to stop at your store in Slidell to and from trips back home.”

A. Daigle, Rouses shopper

Marketing and Advertising Director Tim Acosta with son Chris, who is a grocery category manager for Rouses.

Martinolich Makes Sure Healthy & Authentic Products Are on Rouses’ Shelves

Keeping in tune with food trends is vital in the grocery business, of course. And while Rouses will always carry the soul/Creole/Cajun, authentic Italian and mainstream products its customers seek, there’s no question that healthier food options have to be available, too.

“We’ve been on the forefront of that for a few years,” according to CEO Donny Rouse.

That focus led the company this year to promote Jason Martinolich to VP of natural, organic, specialty and private brands.

Martinolich, who is married to Donny’s sister Mandy, works closely with Rouses’ dietitian, Esther Ellis, on programs to keep Rouses at the forefront of healthy eating. These include “Eat Right with Rouses,” a tag found on more than 500 grocery items indicating lower sodium, lower saturated fat, healthier fats, more fiber or less sugar.

He also seeks out new products for Rouses’ private brands program. Recently these have included a line of authentic Italian foods. More are on the way.

Martinolich’s first job linked to Rouses, but not actually as an employee of Rouses, was donning a Kool-Aid man costume for an event at Rouses #1 in Thibodaux in 1992 when he was 15 years old. A friend of his mother’s recommended him for the job. He says the pay was supposed to be $10; somehow, he only got $8.

But he’s gotten a lot from Rouses since then, including a career and his wife.

A Rouses family

Martinolich’s path to VP began in 1993, when he was 16. He needed money to pay for insurance and gas for his car, so he applied for a job at Rouses, where his family shopped.

“I grew up listening to my mom and my grandparents talking about Rouses because they all shopped

at Rouses,” says Martinolich, whose grandfather had operated a little grocery store at one time. “I thought if I’m going to work in a grocery store, I want to work at Rouses.”

He started out as a service clerk, bagging groceries and collecting shopping carts. Eventually he began stocking, then worked in produce from 1996-99.

He was going to college during that time as well. After he got his degree, he went into Rouses’ store management program. He became an assistant store director and then a store director before moving to headquarters as a category manager.

He had met his wife Mandy when she was working in the marketing department at Rouses. She was in the store taking product photos for Rouses ads when she saw Martinolich. She needed his help finding some of the products she needed to photograph (or so she said). The couple, which has three sons, ages 8, 6 and 4, will celebrate their 10th anniversary next year.

After serving as a corporate category manager for a time, Martinolich went back into the stores as a director of merchandising.

He returned to headquarters, now called the store support center, about two years ago as director of natural, organic and specialty food. He was elevated to his VP position earlier this year.

Martinolich says that Rouses segregates natural and organic products in a separate department in some stores, “but we’re mostly integrating now. And as we build new stores, you’ll see natural and organic and specialty foods integrated into the sections.”

Merchandising that way allows customers to decide at the shelf whether they prefer natural/organic or conventional products. While there are shelf flags that communicate some of that information now, Martinolich says a new sign program will be implemented in early 2019.

A monthly specialty flyer also communicates the nutritional attributes of selected products, and Rouses’ bi-monthly magazine, Everyday, features a column by dietitian Ellis, talking about ways to eat right.

“It’s something we do focus on because we understand the importance of telling the story of what makes those items great, or better, for you,” he says.

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Retailer of the Year 2018

Jason Martinolich with wife Mandy and their three sons.

From page 44

Martinolich says, “A lot of people want to eat better, but in a lot of cases they just don’t know how. Esther is a resource for those people. They can contact her through eatright.com; they can talk to her directly and ask questions.”

He believes Rouses customers appreciate Ellis as a resource, and Rouses wants to be “the place where customers can go to eat better.”

Martinolich added that bringing Steve Black on as president and COO has helped Rouses learn more about the natural and organic side of the business, as that was his retail background before joining Rouses in late 2016.

“When Steve came aboard he brought that trade with him,” Martinolich says. “He said one of the things he wanted to achieve is to make sure Rouses is the best in having that natural and organics and conventional in one location and it being a one-stop shop. That’s something I think about all the time. You can’t sell everything, so you have to sell what’s most important to your customers. That’s something we work on day in and day out—what do our customers want, how can we make it a one-stop shop so that they can come to Rouses and get everything they want and not have to go anywhere else?”

Going to the source

Rouses’ specialty foods and private brands also are under Martinolich’s purview, and that responsibility has taken him to Italy on three different occasions and recently to Thailand for the first time. He is literally going to the source to procure product. Rouses could go through a broker, of course, but

Rouses Brings Italian Imports to the Gulf Through ITA Partnership

Rouses Markets announced in March 2018 that it was partnering with the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) to add Italian imports, including cheese, cured meats, preserves and wine, to its stores throughout the Gulf Coast.

“This partnership expands exponentially the Italian imports we have on our shelves for our customers,” said Donny Rouse, CEO. “We’ve made Italian products a priority because our customers demand it. The cultural heritage of Italy is prevalent in the Gulf South, with more than a quarter of the population tracing its lineage back to the old country. Even our own family traces its roots to Italy and the large Italian island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea.”

Over the last year, Donny Rouse and members of the Rouses Markets buying team have traveled to Sicily, Milan, Verona, Bologna and other Italian regions to source the products that are being introduced in the stores. In addition, the Rouses team met the individual makers and attended most major food shows including Vinitaly, an annual wine and spirits exhibition, to further research and source Italian-made products.

“When you want the best of the best from Italy, you go to the source,” added Rouse. “We made trips and visited purveyors at home where they have been making these fantastic Italian products for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”

Rouses’ weekly ad also features a weekly message to shoppers from Ellis.

“Each week it’s a different theme that she’s focusing on,” Martinolich says. “If it’s Celiac Month, each week that whole month she will have a gluten-free recipe and promote maybe four items that go in the recipe in the ad.”

Ellis also schedules complimentary store tours for different groups. She walks them around the store “to show them how to eat better, what items are better selections, healthier options vs. what they were using before.”

In addition, she coordinates Eat Right Health Fairs in a Rouses store once a month. At the fairs, vendors sample their products, offer free samples and talk to customers.

Rouses hired Ellis in September 2015, saying at the time that “today’s customers are more focused on nutrition, where their foods come from and how they are produced.

“Our new initiative, ‘Eat Right with Rouses,’ is all about building a healthier Gulf Coast,” Donny Rouse said at the time. “On the Gulf Coast, where we live to eat, healthy has to taste good. Eat Right with Rouses is focused on food that is healthy and tasty.”

“With Eat Right with Rouses, there’s no complicated nutritional scoring system for the customer to follow, and no food that tastes like cardboard,” Ellis said. “I’m from Louisiana. I need food with flavor.”

A native of Baton Rouge, Ellis received her B.S. in dietetics at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.

“Our grocery stores are a natural setting for people to talk about nutrition and meal planning,” Donny said.

Among her duties, Ellis develops nutritional breakdowns for all of Rouses’ recipes, prepared foods and its branded food.

Just recently, Rouses’ delis began selling products under the Good-To-Go label. These are meals, side dishes and snacks created by Rouses chefs and Ellis. They are “sensibly sized, made with betterfor-you ingredients and suited to specific dietary goals or restrictions,” according to Rouses.

Rouses Markets recently unveiled its own line of Italian-made products, including Sicilian extra virgin olive oil, castelvetrano olives and balsamic vinegar from Modena.

“Private label is our way of bringing you better prices on the foods you’ve eaten your whole life,” added Rouse. “And we are excited to introduce delicious new Italian foods that our customers may not have thought of serving every day.”

The company celebrated the new products throughout March with price deals, a selection of Italian recipes on its website and live cooking demos in stores.

Rouses’ dietitian, Esther Ellis, R.D.

that would mean paying a middle man and not knowing if the best product was being procured.

Tim Acosta, Rouses director of marketing and advertising who also has traveled to Italy to scout out product, says, “By going there ourselves, we have that direct connection. Instead of going through two or three importers or brokers and adding another layer of cost, we go direct and get them straight into our stores at the best possible cost of goods for our customers.”

Martinolich added, “On our first trip to Italy, we hit a lot of the major categories we thought our customers would really enjoy and would love to have products from. We got pizzas from South Italy, olive oil from Sicily, gelato from Bologna, balsamic vinegars from Modena,” he says.

Anthony Rouse Sr.’s father, J.P., was born in Sardinia, so the family—and many others on the Gulf Coast—grew up eating Italian and Creole Italian dishes. They’re still popular in the region today, as a quarter of Gulf Coast residents claim some Italian heritage.

After the Rouses team finds a product, they come back and work with a design company to create a product label. The label design is sent back to Italy, where the label is printed and placed on the product before it is sent back to the U.S. via ship.

The Italian fruit sodas, sparkling waters, “red gravies” (spaghetti sauce) and other products have been well received by customers, they say.

“Olive oil—who does it better than Italy?” Martinolich says. “They have the perfect climate in Sicily for growing olives. We just go where we think it’s the best in the world.”

Here in this country, Martinolich attends some major specialty food trade shows, like Natural Products Expo West and the Specialty Food Association’s Fancy Food Shows.

“Every year I find something big at those shows,” he says. The first year it was cauliflower crust pizzas; the second was My/Mo Mochi ice cream.

“We’re first to market in a lot of cases, especially around here. But not only the South or where we market but sometimes the first in the U.S.,” Martinolich says.

Acosta says the rule for bringing a product into Rouses is simple: “If we wouldn’t buy it for ourselves or our families, we won’t carry it.”

Rouses Puts Special Care into Its Store Brands

We’re proud to put our name on the products we make. We make it easy to save with store brands that are as good as national brands, and unique products developed in partnership with local producers. Our own Rouses Markets private label offers great value on everyday essentials, from milk, bread, eggs and water to gourmet and specialty items like extra virgin olive oil and local seasonings and sauces. You’ll find hundreds of our Rouses Markets products throughout the store. Each food item has been personally tasted by the Rouse Family, and each product is guaranteed to deliver the best quality at the best price.

What has made you want to stay at Rouses?

“I’ve always loved being in the food business. I love working with food, working with people, talking to people. When I was in the stores, I got to know a lot of people and talk to a lot of people and just be part of that business—the people and food business. I think I got hooked to it.”

—Jason Martinolich, VP of natural, organic, specialty and private brands

Operations VP Learned Early That Hard Work Pays Off at Rouses

Clint Adams, VP of operations for Rouses Markets, considers himself part of the family. And with good reason. Joining the team right after he graduated from high school, he has grown and matured along with company over the past three decades. Working his way up through the ranks, Adams leaves an impression wherever he goes and is extremely well liked by his co-workers. In celebration of Rouses Markets being named 2018 Southeastern Retailer of the Year by The Shelby Report, he sat down with Editor-in-Chief Lorrie Griffith.

Q: Tell me about your path here at Rouses.

I started right out of high school. Walked in, got a job. I was a service clerk, a stocker. I started at Rouses #2. It was the store that was replaced by Rouses #6, which was the first superstore that

the Rouses built. It was the 60,000-70,000-s.f. store, probably the largest one this area had in Houma. I was able to work myself into a full-time dairy and frozen position, which later I became dairy and frozen food manager—my first department head position. Then a couple of years after that, I had the opportunity to become an assistant manager. I was able to go to the White Castle store, which was our first store in White Castle, Rouses #7, and be the assistant manager at that store. Then I got the opportunity from there to go to Morgan City as a store director.

Did that require you to actually move or were you able to commute?

I moved and commuted to all these various positions. At the time it was little over an hour and a half commute for me. We moved back because we’d rather live in Houma. I still live in Houma today. It’s only like a 20-minute drive. Houma and Thibodaux are very close. Today with the new speed limits and interstates, it’s a lot better than it was back then.

Did you grow up here?

I was born in Texas. I moved to Louisiana probably when I was around 7 years old, lived here ever since. They almost consider me Cajun.

I was able to open up some of the newer formats as a store director and slowly started doing multi-store (supervision). We used to call ourselves store supervisors back then. Only had two of us back then so we didn’t really call ourselves district managers at the time. As we continued to grow, I was one of the district managers. I helped with the takeover of the Sav-A-Center stores when we were able to make that purchase. After that was finished and rolled out, we hired two more district managers, so at that point we had four district managers and I ended up taking the majority of the Sav-ACenter stores in the city (of New Orleans)—the new ones that we had taken over (from A&P). We needed to teach our culture and make sure we didn’t lose focus on what made Rouses.

Did a lot of the employees from those stores stay?

Yes, the majority of them. We hired all of them and we had a pretty good deal for them to come on over. What makes Rouses a great company is it’s a company you see yourself starting with and also being able to retire with. And you’re not worried about who’s going to buy you or who’s going to own you or who you’re going to be working for next month, next year or the next five years. So you can make some good long-term plans.

After you were district manager there, how did you come into the store support?

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I’m still in the field for the most part because I’m vice president of operations, so basically I’m overseeing the district managers for the company currently and all of operations, working directly for Mr. Steve (Black) and Mr. Donny (Rouse).

How many district managers do you have now?

We have six currently. And we now call them regional directors of operations (RDOs).

CEO Donny Rouse with Clint Adams, VP of operations.

Clint Adams

Are you out in the stores a good bit of the time?

Yes. I come into the office a couple of days a week, typically Mondays and Wednesdays for ad reviews or any meetings we would have to have in the office. Other than that, I’m out in the field working with the regional directors and store directors. Do you enjoy being out in the stores?

I really enjoy working with people and training and just lending them my experience and what I see in my pair of eyes.

Was there a reason you joined Rouses?

I needed a job. At the time I was contemplating college or what my next step was going to be. I just wanted to get a job. And then the opportunities…as Rouses grew, I was able to grow. And it was relatively quickly. When I started with them, I think at the time we had five stores. They replaced the one store I was working at with the larger store, which was truly, at the time, pretty amazing—just what that store offered compared to what everything else was around town. And these were the days before the supercenters and everything else happened.

It was cutting-edge at the time. The foresight Mr. (Donald) Rouse has always had, being first to market and getting out there quick with new formats. He just always had that. His dad (Anthony Rouse) was always driven with best quality, best service, best price. That still remains the same today. That’s what I appreciate. We’ve stayed true to our roots.

Did you see a clear career path once you got into Rouses?

I saw it being a career. I think a lot of young people don’t know where they want to go, where they want to be 10 years from now and I really wasn’t thinking about that at the time. When I started, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just did my job. And I was recognized because I did my job every day. And that’s all it was, just doing my job every day. Just come in, work hard, do your job. It was (being) respectful…you were nice to people. That’s what the grocery business was about, just being nice. We

About the Rouse family: “Their passion for the business is just unparalleled. You just don’t see how passionate they are about just being the best. No matter what market they’re in, they want to be the best grocer in that market. It’s just the mentality they’ve instilled in me and everybody else that’s worked for us for any period of time.”

—Clint

VP of operations

couldn’t take tips when I was a service clerk, and people would just get upset with me because they wanted to give you a dollar or two dollars for helping them out with their groceries. But I said, no, that’s what we do.

You knew Anthony Rouse, you have some personal memories of him. What were some of your interactions with him and some things you maybe learned from him directly?

I remember one conversation I had with him. One day he was standing there in front (of the first Thibodaux store, now the company’s store support center). He’d come in the store before it’d open. He’d be out there just as early as you were, have a cup of coffee with you. When I went to open the store, he told me I wasn’t guaranteed customers walking through that door. He said, “You’ve got to earn that business every day. Just because you unlock the door doesn’t mean people are going to come through it.” He just really emphasized that every day, every customer, you just had to earn that business.

Adams,

Please see page 52

He’d come through the store from the back of the building. Basically, he told me if your warehouse looks good and your warehouse is neat, straight and clean, he knew your sales floor is going to be. And that’s something that he taught me early on.

He was very unassuming. You wouldn’t know he owned the company.

I started as a nighttime stocker at the old Piggly Wiggly in Houma, Rouses #2. One day my manager comes by looking for volunteers to sweep up at Rouses #6, which was then under construction. I headed over with another team member. The first person I see in the store is an older man dressed in coveralls, covered in sweat, standing over a bunch of busted-up concrete. He asked us to help move the concrete. I said yes, but the other guy said no, he’d only been brought over to sweep. The next day, my manager tells me Mr. Anthony wanted me back at #6 after work. And the other team member?

I never saw him again. I tell people all the time, when someone asks you to do something, do it. Because you never know who’s asking.

I just did what he asked me to do; didn’t know who he was, and it didn’t matter. I was just taught, somebody asks you to do something, as long as it’s reasonable, you do it. Lucky for me. Lot of people say right place, right time. But really, it’s just doing what you’re supposed to do every day, no matter what…when nobody’s watching, doing what you’re supposed to do.

And Mr. Anthony appreciated hard work. He was right there with everybody, working side by side with you. As late as store #23. I’d walked in one day as a district manager at the time and I had my white shirt on with my tie and he was down digging in the electrical pit, looking up at me saying, “What you doing, boy? You don’t come on a job site dressed like that.”

The culture he instilled still continues?

Yes, he instilled that in Mr. Donald and Mr. Donny—their passion for the business is just unparalleled. You see how passionate they are about just being the best. No matter what market they’re in, they want to be the best grocer in that market. It’s just the mentality they’ve instilled in me and everybody else that’s worked for us for any period of time.

There seems to be a lot of folks who have been here for a long time.

When you talk about a third-generation grocer, like Mr. Donny is, at one point he was in the store and he was working with me. It’s a unique experience. To be able to see them come up as kids and then to take over the business. When you do every job, you know what you’re asking people to do. You understand what you’re asking them, and they know you’re not asking them to do anything impossible because you’ve done it already.

“It starts with leadership, with the Rouses and their desire to be the best. As a leadership group of the company, we always want to make sure if we’re slipping, we want to pick it up. We are constantly checking ourselves. We’re not satisfied. It’s hard to always be on, but you try to be on all the time.”

—Clint Adams, VP of operations

In your role, how have you seen Rouses change with the times?

We just seem to be ahead of the trends. We’re very innovative, but at the same time we remain true to what we are. We are a local grocery store. No matter what community we go in, we want to be part of the community. Best service, best quality, best price. When you open a supermarket, I guess everybody

gets passionate about their supermarket. And everybody appreciates a good supermarket. When you go into Walmart and they seem to run out of stock all the time, we just try to make sure we have it and we try to be right every day, all day, seven days a week.

Why has Rouses been able to grow?

We listen to our customers. And because we’re family owned, there’s no red tape. If we’re doing something and the customers don’t appreciate it and they would like us to do it differently, we change. If we see competition, we react quickly. We watch what’s going on in the community and we try to adjust. If there’s a demand for a product, we want to bring it in. If people want to buy stuff, you need to have it for them to buy. Keep clean stores, keep fully stocked, have people there to check out when people want to check out, schedule your help when you need them.

It starts with leadership, with the Rouses and their desire to be the best. As a leadership group of the company, we always want to make sure if we’re slipping, we want to pick it up. We are constantly checking ourselves. We’re not satisfied. It’s hard to always be on, but you try to be on all the time.

In today’s age, we make everything an event. You go back 20 years ago, you used to think about the major holidays. Now, every week is something new. You try to tie your business into what people do. People celebrate now; people celebrate with food. We try to win the holidays. We try to win every holiday, every big game. We want to have everything you need to tailgate. Today, with social media, it’s quick, quick, quick. Something’s going on every day. Everybody eats every day.

When you want to hear about what’s really going on, go talk to your store people. They’ll tell you. They’re talking to your customers every day. You’ve got to have that feedback coming every which way. You can’t just tell them what to do, you need to listen to what’s going on, how it’s being accepted. Just make sure you’re doing the right thing.

How have the products Rouses carries changed?

I can remember back to when we were putting in big soup kettles and making our own gumbos and soups and packaging them up in quart containers and pint containers and selling then. We’ve been doing that for quite some time. When we opened up #6, one of the areas was called Tony’s Kitchen. Mr. Anthony’s son Tony was one of the lead chefs and coming up with the recipes; it was just really home cooking meals. I remember one of our cooks, Miss Ronnie, she gave me some of her recipes, which I still use today. Just really, really good food. I don’t know that we would call it healthy food today, but it was, let’s say, comfort food. That store also opened with a smokehouse, so we were smoking our own products, making our own beef jerky. I think we were on the cutting edge of value-added at the time. We were processing, seasoning, pre-seasoning and making it easier for you to get it home and prepare it. And our first big seafood shop that we opened up, it’s still operating today.

(It’s important) the way you present food, too. The new cases make it look so much better. It’s all glass, stainless steel.

What is Rouses is doing with remodels now?

We’re doing LED lighting, we’re doing the doors on the dairy case to make the refrigeration just be more efficient. We’re using the new Freon technologies they have. In South Louisiana, the temperatures and the humidity in the summers can be pretty demanding. When you want to feel real hot, come down here in the middle of

the summer.

What’s the most fun part of your job?

I enjoy working with people. Early in my career, everybody was older than me. I was a store director very young, so my assistant managers had twice the experience I had and I guess I had to earn their respect. They just wouldn’t give it to me because I was a store director. I learned early on…I asked them for advice because they’d been in the business a long time. I didn’t assume I knew more than them just because I’ve got a title.

What’s the most challenging part of your job?

Just getting to the stores as often as I’d like. Because I really do enjoy hearing what’s going on, how are the programs working and just getting around quickly enough. When you’re four hours in that direction and four hours in that direction, that’s eight hours of driving.

Why is Rouses a great choice for our Retailer of the Year?

We’re growing in the face of everybody else contracting. I think that makes us a pretty good case study, if nothing else, right?

We’re on the third generation. I’m working with Donny very closely and I really appreciate his vision and the way he’s stayed true to what his dad has instilled and his dad before him. I just really appreciate his desire to be the best, as well. And just never settling for being second.

“We’re on the third generation. I’m working with Donny very closely and I really appreciate his vision and the way he’s stayed true to what his dad has instilled and his dad before him. I just really appreciate his desire to be the best, as well. And just never settle for being second.”

—Clint Adams, VP of operations

Clint Adams inside the Bluebonnet Village Rouses.

Storms Have Fortified Rouses in More Ways Than One

Hurricanes are just a part of life for residents of certain areas of the United States, including the Gulf Coast.

But few hurricanes in U.S. history have had quite the impact of Hurricane Katrina, which squarely hit New Orleans and surrounding areas in late August 2005. Though Rouses didn’t have stores in New Orleans proper at the time, the impacts were felt in Metairie, which is near New Orleans, as well as at home in Thibodaux and surrounding areas.

The magnitude of losses from Katrina led Rouses to invest in backup generators for all its stores. The storm also was the impetus for a competitor to decide to leave New Orleans, which opened the door for Rouses to enter the city a couple of years later while doubling its store count.

That was not the first time Rouses had been able to add to its portfolio following a storm. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which did damage in Miami before heading straight for the Gulf Coast and hitting west of Morgan City, Louisiana, Winn-Dixie decided not to reopen its store there and Rouses was able to buy it. Rouses didn’t have a store in Morgan City at the time, but it was a logical location for a store, since it wasn’t unusual for Morgan City residents to commute to Houma, so they would be familiar with Rouses already.

Tim Acosta, director of marketing and advertising, says, “When that opportunity came, we decided we were going to go over there and take care of the customers because that’s what we did. That was Rouse #8, our eighth store.”

That store later was replaced with a larger store, but it had been a way for Rouses

to enter a new market, as was Katrina.

Acosta says of the days after Katrina, “It was some tough times. We learned a lot. At the time we didn’t have these generators to power our whole stores like we do today. We incurred a lot of loss…We used to think generators that big to run whole stores were very expensive, but we learned quickly that it costs you more (not to have them).”

A&P, which operated Sav-A-Center banner stores in New Orleans, took Katrina as a sign that it was time to leave the Gulf Coast.

“They pulled out, and we moved in,” Acosta says. With the deal, Rouses went from 15 stores to more than 30.

But Acosta hastens to point out that when it comes to storms, “the health and wellbeing of our team members is always important.”

Rouses tries to keep its stores open as long as it can prior to a storm and then get them back open as fast as it can after the storm, but not if it’s not safe.

“I remember right after (Katrina), here in Thibodaux all our stores were closed, but we had a few of us here, the family, and we all went to #16 here in Thibodaux and opened up that store and did what we could because the customers needed to be served. That’s what we’re here for, we serve the customers. We always want to be the last to close and the first to open while keeping everybody safe and sound. We…didn’t force anybody to stay. It was strictly a voluntary basis.”

He recalls attempting to get to the Rouses store in Covington, on the North Shore, after Katrina, but the causeway was closed so he and his sons had take an hour-and-ahalf detour through Baton Rouge (where Rouses didn’t have stores at the time) to get there.

“We had to get into the store and clean out all of our perishable items. We were doing that every day. I would grab my sons and their friends and we would take off. We listened to the radio—the mayor, the speeches, all that stuff that was on the news. We’d leave early and get back late and do it again the next day.”

Acosta also recalled Hurricane Gustav in early September 2008, which struck Thibodaux.

The day after the storm, founder Anthony Rouse rallied the troops to open the store in Thibodaux.

“My three sons, Ali, Mr. Rouse, the cousins on the front end, little nieces and nephews in there just taking care of customers, everybody running registers,” Acosta says. “We’re not going to sit home; we’re going to get into the store. We left other stores closed and just got everybody into that one store. That’s why, even today, we try to have one store in each area to serve. If we can’t staff them all, we’ll pull in all our resources to get one open to serve the community.”

All those interviewed who were working for Rouses when Katrina hit tell of Rouse family members springing into action to reopen stores as soon as possible to serve hurting residents.

Winnie Fortner, receiving specialist–asset and profit protection, started working for Rouses just two days after Katrina hit.

She says, “Working side by side with the family members during this time made the experience an eye-opener on how dedicated the family was to the community and the area. They were working diligently to get the stores stocked with the necessities that were needed to serve the customers while keeping the safety of the employees first and foremost, making sure that the employees’ personal needs were taken care of.”

VP of Operations Clint Adams was a district manager in the Houma area at the time.

“I remember the hurricane kind of got up on to us quick. We weren’t planning on it coming this way and then, all of a sudden, it looked like it was coming this way,” says Adams, who had bought a new house about two months before that. “We were really busy and rotating shifts. They told me to go take care of my house.”

He was able to cut new boards to cover up the windows on the new house and, because of the uncertainty about what the storm was going to do, he decided to evacuate his family. The normally-eighthour drive to where they would stay took 12 hours. Once he had them settled, he turned around to head back to Houma—about the time Katrina was hitting.

“I was driving back in, just to make sure I was there for right after the storm passed. We always want to be the last to operate safely, because people need supplies. At that point we’re there to make sure everybody gets what they need to just hunker down, be safe and be able to have enough food and water and everything else they need.”

By the time he got back to Houma, it was nighttime, and there was no electricity and no phone service, not even cell phone service. When daylight came, Adams went to store #15, the St. Charles store, which did have electricity.

“It was the only store in Houma that had electricity at the time,” he says. “A few people started showing up, so I just opened the store since I had people to run the registers. There are some pictures that somebody took from up above, and it just shows lines of people buying just anything they could get their hands on. Finally, I was able to get off the register and I started making it to the other stores.”

The other stores in Adams’ district didn’t have electricity again until later that day, so product had to be tossed and cleanup done.

“As soon as the stores were safe, we were opening up.”

The two stores in Metairie, north of New Orleans, still were inaccessible. It would be revealed later that both stores had been looted, though only one had flooded. That one would not reopen.

“Frankly, my life became so busy at that point,” Adams says. “It was probably 10-12 days before we got electricity at my house, so each morning it was a task. You woke up early, made sure you could get some gas to keep your generator going. I had to teach my son how to work the generator so I could go to work. And we just worked, worked and worked. No TV. I really didn’t see all the coverage that probably the nation saw, because I was just in the middle of it and working every day.”

Many Rouses team members’ homes had flooded, he says.

Since Adams didn’t have any major damage at his house and his family was safe, he was able to focus on what he needed to do for the company and team members at his stores.

“You always want to make sure your team is able to take care of their family and their personal property, while you’re trying to take care of the business and the property,” he says. “We run (Rouses) like we own it. Just like anything else, if that’s not here to come back to, then we don’t have a job.”

As soon as Rouses could get back into #14 in Metairie, it was readied for reopening.

“We were one of the first stores that opened back in Metairie,” Adams says. “And the team, they couldn’t wait to get back to work. They really couldn’t wait to get back and start rebuilding their homes.”

Ali Rouse Royster, managing partner, added, “When we reopened (in Metairie), the people were so thankful and happy to see us reopen. It was uplifting in a time that was still…I mean, it was a month later, and there still were very few businesses that had reopened. There were people who were just so happy to get fresh food. It instilled in me that the grocery store is the heart of the community. As boring as that might seem to some, to get your grocery store back open, to be able to come in and get bread and milk and soup, sausage and chicken for gumbo…to be able to get back to that normal is so important for a neighborhood. That, really, was my takeaway from the grocery store aspect of Katrina: Going forward, we’re always trying to be the best operator for a hurricane. That way the community doesn’t have to worry about, ‘OK, I’m going to come back, but I’m not going to be able to get food.’ We need to be ready and prepared, not just for our own business but for our neighbors. It’s not just dollars and cents for that—it’s helping a community heal and keep moving forward instead of being stagnated in recovery.”

Katrina, according to Adams, led Rouses to develop a very structured plan on how things would be handled during future storms, and, as noted, install full-store generators.

“Our goal is to try to protect the resources but try to get back open as quick as we can,” he says. “You always hope for the best and plan for the worst. I guess you don’t know what ‘worst’ could be until you experience something like that. It was a blur; it’s hard to remember everything you did. But you realize just how much you appreciate electricity!”

When Hurricane Katrina struck, Ronnie Pitre was manager of Rouses #16 on North Canal Boulevard in Thibodaux.

“The day after the storm I drove to the store,” he says. “Donny was in the store already, checking it out to make sure there was no damage. We opened that store the next day. There wasn’t a store in seven parishes open. We opened the next day with five family members.”

Pitre says he and the Rouse family members, including Donny, ran registers and bagged groceries.

“We did what we could for the public that day,” he says. “The next day, more people came back into the area from other stores and we stayed the only Rouses open for several days.”

—Tim Acosta, director of marketing and advertising

Employees from other Rouses stores helped run the North Canal store, which remained without power for about four days and had to rely on generators.

“Once word got out that we were open, it was like ‘hold on for the ride,’” Pitre recalled. “But it was something that needed to be done and people really remember those kinds of things, when you take care of them. It would have been easy just to stay home like everybody else was doing… And there was a lot of people from the New Orleans area (in Thibodaux). They got out of New Orleans, where there wasn’t nothing open, there just really wasn’t.”

Tim Landry says he was running Rouses’ #3 in Raceland in 2005.

“It was crazy busy as far as customers and shopping,” he says. “After the storm, the one thing that stuck in my head is, we were out in the parking lot giving away free ice. One of the chicken companies, they used to pack chicken in ice back then—chicken parts, whole chickens—so they had donated the ice. It was in chicken boxes and we were giving it away.”

He also recalls seeing pickup trucks full of people, front and back, driving toward Thibodaux, where Nicholls State University was offering shelter for evacuees.

He says with power outages, media reports were scarce.

“We knew it was bad in New Orleans. We just didn’t know how bad,” Landry says.

“That’s what we’re here for, we serve the customers. We always want to be the last to close and the first to open while keeping everybody safe and sound.”

Denham Springs store rebuilt after 2016 floods

In August 2016, prolonged rainfall resulted in catastrophic flooding in the state of Louisiana; thousands of houses and businesses were submerged.

Among them was Rouses’ store in Denham Springs, outside Baton Rouge, that had opened in January 2015 in the Juban Crossing shopping center. There were five feet of water in the store.

Donny Rouse, CEO, as soon as it was safe, went to the store to survey, and video, the damage to the store so a plan could be formulated.

“We needed to get open as quick as possible for the customers in the area. The whole town was damaged, but people still needed groceries, they needed to eat, and it was our job to do that,” he said.

It was Dec. 14 before the 50,000s.f. store could be reopened. In the meantime, the store’s employees worked at Rouses stores in Ponchatoula and Baton Rouge, the latter debuting Aug. 24 as flood cleanup in the area was under way.

“We’ve been through this before with hurricanes,” Donny said. “This time there was no wind, just flooding. But I believe this destruction in the Baton Rouge area is, dollar wise, equal to or greater than what Katrina did to New Orleans.”

Following are excerpts from a Shelby Report interview with Donny about the Denham Springs store.

Q: Tell us about the flood damage at the Denham Springs store and what has transpired over the last few days.

Donny Rouse: Saturday afternoon the water started coming into the store, and it came in pretty fast. It got up to about 2 feet in the store in a matter of an hour. Some of the people in the store actually had to leave by boat due to the water coming up so quickly. On Sunday afternoon, I was able to fly over the store to check on it and could see it had about 5 feet of water, and everything around the area was covered in water. I went back Monday morning and checked on it again and the water had come down some. On Monday afternoon I was be able to land a helicopter near the store and walk into the store and take some video and pictures and get a few things out that we needed. But it’s a total loss—everything that was inside the building. We have a restoration company that began working on it—getting everything removed so that we can start putting it back together again.

Did the store have flood insurance, and were any other Rouses’ stores damaged or destroyed by the floods?

No other stores were damaged; we are OK in the Lafayette area where there was some flooding as well as other parts of the state. Luckily, we do have flood insurance on that (Denham Springs) location, so everything should work out for us on that end. Dollar wise—it’s a big number. There’s about $1.5 million in inventory loss, plus another $4 million in building and asset damage.

What’s your timeline in getting the store back up and running?

It’s really going to depend on our equipment manufacturers. In talking with them, hopefully they can put us at the top of their list to get our cases to us quickly, but we’re still estimating eight to 12 weeks.

Are all your employees safe and accounted for?

All of our employees are OK. A lot of them at (the Denham Springs) store lost their homes, but they are working at our Ponchatoula location and at the store that we will be opening in Baton Rouge.

Speaking of Baton Rouge, you’re getting ready to debut the Rouses name there.

There was water all around (the Baton Rouge location), but fortunately the store was built high enough. We’re very excited to get into this Baton Rouge market. It’s going to be kind of a softer grand opening for us next week just due to the situation in the area, with all the homes flooding…We will do a bigger grand opening later. We’re just trying to speed things up and get open so we can service the community right now.

(Incidentally, the Baton Rouge store on Airline Highway in the Long Farm Village development features the “exact same” design and layout as the Denham Springs store, according to Rouse.

At approximately 50,000 s.f., the unit’s produce section will be in the middle of the store next to a section that merchandises fresh, pre-chopped vegetables and fruits. The fresh seafood department is one of the first areas shoppers see. Like all Rouses stores, the Baton Rouge location will focus on Louisiana and Gulf Coast products, ranging from packaged items to king cakes and jambalaya prepared in-store and fresh meat and produce supplied by local farmers.)

Donny Rouse points out the water line during a walk-through of the Denham Springs store.

S tore D irector J eremy S immonS

Downtown New Orleans Location Leader Honored as Store Director of the Year

Jeremy Simmons, 41, was honored in April as the 2018 Store Director of the Year by Rouses Markets for the way he leads the Baronne Street store in downtown New Orleans.

The award is voted on by the Rouse family, company president and regional district office (RDO). According to Rouses Creative Director Marcy Nathan, Simmons was the unanimous choice.

“It was very flattering,” Simmons says of the recognition. “I’ve never won anything in my life. To receive that was quite an honor.”

The Baronne Street store is located in New Orleans’ warehouse district. Donald Rouse decided to put a fullservice supermarket in the former Cadillac dealership building in November 2011, making it the first one to open in the area in about 50 years.

“Mr. Donald took a chance, and it was definitely a good decision, seeing where it was and what it has come to be,” Simmons says. “The area here was all surfacelevel parking when we first opened, and now it’s all condominiums. Just the revitalization in the CBD (Central Business District)…probably since the 1984 World’s Fair, nothing this big has happened down here. It’s fantastic to see it coming back and this space being utilized again.”

Simmons says before Rouses opened the Baronne Street store, the area was pretty much a thoroughfare.

“It was almost all business traffic,” he says. “Other than that, there wasn’t much going on. Monday through Friday you had your businesses that were open, but on the weekends it was very quiet.”

Simmons says that no longer is the case, with people moving in as the area has developed. “Now they’re coming in the store because they live here,” he says. “This is their store—their regular store they shop at.”

Rouses’ CEO Donny Rouse gives his dad Donald all the credit for the Baronne Street store.

“That store has outperformed every budget we have written, from day one,” he says. “We figured it was going to take a little while to catch on, but it has just been booming. That was the first new retail in the area, the warehouse district in New Orleans, in many, many years. Today, when you go there, there’s no more empty parking lots. It’s all retail with apartments above it.”

Simmons says Donald Rouse obviously saw something in the area that made him want to take a chance on opening a new store. As the neighborhood has grown, Rouses has been front and center and has been welcomed by those moving in, not just residents but other businesses as well.

“We’ve been welcomed by the neighborhood, and we participate in things with the neighborhood,” Simmons says. “I reach out to the businesses around here and let them know, hey, we’re here if you ever need anything, even if it’s just change for your register. If they need some quarters, we’ll get them for them. Little things like that. They always know we’re here. I make myself available if they need something.”

That kind of helpful attitude has benefited Simmons in his years in the grocery business. The Metairie, Louisiana, native started working for A&P as an assistant manager at age 21. When A&P closed that division, Rouses acquired it and Simmons joined the Rouses team. Now in his 11th year with the company, he has worked on the North Shore, in the Metairie/Kenner area and then at the Tchoupitoulas location. From there he came to the Baronne Street store and has been there for the last six years.

“To see the area grow has just been tremendous,” he says. There is always something going on near the store, Simmons says. The French Quarter Fest is held close by, and Jazz Fest is only a few miles away. Street musicians are a common sight.

And with people from all walks of life in the area, “it’s almost like the ‘lite’ version of the French Quarter location we have,” he says. “While they may have the folks that hang out, literally, in front of the store, and there’s probably a five-piece band that sets up every day, we’ll get one or two through here, and it’s interesting.”

With New Orleans being a popular tourist destination—for international as well as domestic travelers—Simmons says people from all over the world come through the store.

“It’s interesting to hear the accents and see the people,” he says. “When you approach some of them and ask if you can assist them in any way, they start speaking their language. They may show me a picture on their phone and I’ll show them where it’s at. I’m sure the Royal Street location sees it, too. But it’s definitely interesting to see that aspect.”

The Rouses store on Baronne Street has become kind of a destination itself, Simmons says, adding that hotel concierges often suggest the market to their guests.

“They recommend us for a good meal and a good experience,” he says. “We have a garden on our rooftop. Not many other grocery stores do. It sets us apart.”

Another thing that sets Rouses apart is the company culture. Founded by Anthony Rouse Sr. and passed down through his sons and now a third generation, taking care of the customer is the goal.

“When I first started working for Rouses, I worked for Clint Adams, he was my direct supervisor. He was a very good teacher, very influential,” Simmons says of Adams, who now is VP of operations. “Also, seeing Mr. Donald and Mr. Donny here and there and through the meetings and the email communication that we receive—just constant reiteration of the culture they expect, and every day teaching that: taking care of the customer. At the end of the day, take care of the customer. If you ever wonder is that OK, the question is, are you taking care of the customer? Absolutely, take care of the customer. You have to teach that every single day. You can’t give up. It’s kind of like with kids; you’ve got to keep the same message all the time—be consistent. Your naysayers will eventually even say, apparently he’s not changing his message here; this must be the way it’s going to be. It comes across true and everybody gets on board and we’re all rowing in the same direction. That’s what we want to do—take care of the customer, make sure we have quality products out there…I tell them, if you wouldn’t buy it, then don’t put it out there. If you were shopping the store, would you pick it up and buy it? If you wouldn’t, then don’t touch it. If you would, then you’re good.”

Taking care of the customer also means understanding that not all customers are the same. Shoppers in the suburbs are different than shoppers in the city, Simmons says. City shoppers tend to buy smaller portions but come into the store every day, he says, adding that his customers buy a lot of produce and bulk foods.

“They like the fresh here,” Simmons says. “People around here seem to like to cook but they come to shop every day. I’m much the same way; I don’t know what I want

Jeremy Simmons helms the Baronne Street Store in downtown New Orleans, set in a former Cadillac dealership.

Chairman Donald Rouse congratulates Jeremy Simmons on his Store Director of the Year honor in April 2018.

Rouses is spelled out in metal letters in the offices in the Baronne Street store.

to eat until just a few hours before dinner. I can’t plan a week’s worth of meals out because I can’t say on a Sunday that I’m going to want a hamburger on a Thursday. I’ll think about it Thursday afternoon, what I want to eat Thursday evening. Most of the time I’ll stop at the store closest to my house and pick up whatever it is my wife and I decide we’re going to eat and then I’ll go home and prepare it.”

Simmons says he enjoys cooking for his family.

“It’s my downtime, it’s therapeutic,” he says. “My wife will help the kids with the homework and I’ll prepare dinner.”

He says most residents living near the Baronne Street store live in condos, where they don’t have a lot of storage space.

“So it’s small packages mostly, and they tend to buy healthier foods,” Simmons says. A large part of the success of Rouses can be attributed to one thing, according to Simmons: understanding the market.

The family is from the area, he points out, and they know the items that people buy, that a community buys, matter.

“They know you sell Blue Plate or Hellman’s,” he says. “We sell Community Coffee more than we sell Maxwell House. Knowing what to advertise and who to partner with speaks volumes. They know how people cook and how they eat, like when hunting season is going on and the seasonal meats come in. It definitely makes a difference.” Being a family-owned business also makes a difference to the community and to employees. The name on the building belongs to someone, not a corporation, Simmons says.

“It’s not a board, it’s a family,” he says. “I’m not sure everybody understands that. Here, we definitely do. We know the Rouses are a family. Some companies have a name on the building but it’s just a name on the building. Maybe somewhere down the line it was, but here, immediately, you have the Rouse family. You can touch a Rouse. Mr. Donald will walk through the store, Mr. Donny will walk through the store. They visit their stores; they’re not detached, they’re involved.”

Being involved and interacting with people is Simmons’ favorite part of his job. “Meeting people from all over the world, and the different sights you see in here,” he says. “Game day is fun in here with all the different fans that come down for the football game. It’s amazing!”

The Baronne store is very close to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome where the New Orleans Saints play (and Rouses is the Official Grocer of the Saints).

His biggest challenge is trying to make sure his team members stay happy.

“I try to keep everybody in positive moods,” he says. “I try to satisfy their problems the best I can. I want to keep my team happy and to make sure they are taken care of.”

While transitioning from working in the suburbs to the downtown New Orleans area took a little time, Simmons says he is enjoying the downtown environment.

“I enjoy the urban store, probably more than I thought I would at first,” he says. “I’ve traditionally worked in an outlying area, suburban area, but being in an urban area is different. It’s exciting, challenging.”

Simmons is married and has two children and a ragdoll cat. He lives on the North Shore and drives to work on the 24-mile Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge, the world’s longest bridge over a body of water.

“I’ve cooked for Presidents, celebrities, even the Pope. I only serve the best in my restaurant, and at home. That’s why I shop at Rouses.”

This sign in the Baronne store reminds shoppers of how many years Rouses has been the local grocer.

Chef Michael Regua, Antoine’s Restaurant

F rom the

S helby P ubli S hing C o . ar C hive S

Rouses Revitalizes Downtown New Orleans with Cutting-Edge Store

Editor’s note: The Shelby Report sent a staff writer to the opening of the Baronne Street store in 2011, given the momentous nature of the occasion. This is the story that appeared in the December 2011 issue of The Shelby Report of the Southeast.

“We wanted to have the finest grocery store in the South.”

That was Rouses’ goal, according to company executive Donald Rouse, when the Louisiana-based grocer began the process of turning the former Sewell Cadillac Building in downtown New Orleans into a state-of-the-art supermarket.

Residents in the city have lacked choices in full-service supermarkets for a number of years, and that was exacerbated when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city in 2005. Locals have had to drive several miles outside the city to fill their every grocery need.

But those days are over. The Rouses at the corner of Baronne and Girod has everything a grocery shopper could need—and more.

For residents of downtown New Orleans—and especially those who work in the Central Business and the Arts districts—one thing has been missing since the floods Hurricane Katrina brought with her in 2005: a grocery store.

That all changed at 10 a.m. on Nov. 15, 2011, when, following comments from Crescent City Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a blessing and dousing of holy water by a local Catholic priest and a ribbon-cutting by a member of the family, the Rouses opened...

Cutting the ribbon was Ali Rouse, oldest daughter of Karen and Tommy Rouse, who runs the company with his brother Donald Rouse.

to the city becoming what we should be.”

People lined the two streets as early as 9 a.m., listening to the likes of Kermit Ruffins, Tab Benoit and Trombone Shorty over speakers outside the store as the smell of freshbaked goods emanated from inside.

“I live four blocks up Girod,” said Sharon Pellera, who moved from Atlanta to New Orleans 30 years ago, while waiting for the doors to the new Rouses to open. “Everyone in my building has been talking about this store since it came to be known that it would be here and can’t wait for it to open.

“The Rouses are good stores—the produce, in particular—and I plan on asking them to carry everything I go to Whole Foods for so I don’t have to travel the five miles to Whole Foods. We’re simply thrilled that the Rouses are doing this for our community.”

Donald Seeger and Glenn Coulon, who both work for Little Debbie Snacks and are lifelong residents of New Orleans, agreed with Pellera.

“This is just what this area needed,” said Seeger.

The downtown store is Rouses’ 38th and the first full-service market in that particular section of New Orleans since A.M.&J. Solari Market and Food Emporium closed its doors in 1965.

“I am unbelievably excited to be here today,” said District B Councilwoman Stacy Head at the grand opening ceremony. “This has been a long time coming. When I first

Please see page 62

“When you think of New Orleans, you think of the finest restaurants in the world, and South Louisiana is known for its food. Along with all the famous…restaurants that we have, we wanted to have the finest grocery store in the South,” said Donald Rouse to The Shelby Report.

“That being said, we worked very hard to put this store together and we feel like it will be one of the finest in the country from a design standpoint as well as the fresh foods we’ll be offering, the services we’ll be offering. We love being the best, we’re intense about what we do and we’re never satisfied. That’s what this is all about.”

“This is the New Orleans way,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu, holding a glass of champagne during the store’s grand opening ceremony. “I want to give thanks to Donald Rouse and the Rouse family, who made a bet on New Orleans with this store. This is a huge step

The blessing of the new store.

A champagne toast to the new Rouses.

From page 61

got on the city council, New Orleans was leading the nation in a trend to densify and repopulate downtown areas for homes. Young couples and empty-nesters were moving downtown, and this is the final anchor we need to say that New Orleans’ downtown absolutely has arrived. Thank you so much to the Rouse family for believing in New Orleans and continuing to invest in our wonderful city.”

“It’s obvious being here today and standing among this group of people that this store represents more than just a place to get groceries,” said Kurt Weigel, president of the city’s Downtown Development District, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “It represents a place the community will come together. This is one of those important places downtown.”

Featured in the new store is a sit-down café where patrons can find coffee, espresso and doughnuts in the morning and pizzas, calzones, burritos, panini, pastas, sushi and soups prepared by professional chefs in the afternoon and evening.

“We really like to think of our prepared food department as a restaurant within our store,” said Donny Rouse, son of Donald Rouse.

Among the many other features in the new Rouses is a produce department with hydroponic herbs, lettuces and tomatoes, and natural and organic bulk foods. Seafood lovers can choose from 12 different types of oysters and an assortment of whole fish that few can rival.

Coulon, who comes from a family of commercial fisherman, stated his appreciation of the fact that Rouses gets its seafood from the Gulf, and thus the fishermen he calls family. “Customers in these parts 10 to 1 will shop at a store if it means their money stays in the community,” Coulon said.

“Lord know New Orleans needs it,” Seeger added.

The Rouses butcher shop inside the store boasts steakhouse favorites Kobe Waygu beef and dry-aged USDA Choice Angus beef, along with Berkshire pork, lamb, veal and natural chicken—items perfect for the chefs in New Orleans, dozens of whom attended the grand opening.

“This is brilliant,” said Alfred Singleton, chef at Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse in New Orleans. “The Rouse family continues to impress us in their efforts to support this community. This store, and this family, symbolize what Louisiana stand for.”

Among the chefs in attendance who spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony were Ti Martin of Commander’s Palace, Alon Shaya of Domenica, and John Folse of the soonto-open Restaurant R’evolution.

Reflecting the increasingly well-heeled downtown population, the store offers highend luxury items in addition to the Louisiana-made products: a stone-fired pizza oven, lobster and live fish tanks, a pho bar, a gelateria, a humidor and an extensive wine section.

“I love this store, it’s beautiful,” said Denisha Brown, who was born and raised in New Orleans and transferred to work for the downtown Rouses from the store on Tchoupitoulas. “After being in the other stores, I believe this one sets the standard. We’re setting the bar higher here.”

For the new store, the Rouses worked with local bakers, pastry chefs, candy makers, farmers and fishermen, and partnered with local favorites like Sucre, Maple Street Patisserie and the St. James Cheese Co.

“To me, Rouses has taken the spot as the premier local chain,” Justin Trosclair, an uptown New Orleans resident and cheesemonger with the St. James Cheese Co., said to The Shelby Report. “Before Katrina, the grocers around here (were lacking). Now we not only have a beautiful store, but one that highlights local product.”

From its origins as a one-stop shop in Houma, Louisiana, to its nearly 40 locations today, Rouses has stuck to the motto put in place by founders Anthony Rouse and Ciro DiMarco in 1960: Buy the best in Louisiana and bring the best to Louisiana.

For three consecutive years, beginning in 2008, the family-owned Louisiana company was named best supermarket by Gambit, which annually lists the best New Orleans has to offer in various categories.

Being named best supermarket is an honor unto itself, but when one considers that Rouses didn’t open a store in the city of New Orleans until 2007, new meaning is given to the title.

Another title is almost gair-on-teed (to borrow from the late Justin Wilson) with the new store in the more than 60-year-old Sewell Cadillac Building.

“We worked very hard to put this store together,” Donald Rouse said.

Both the store design and product offerings were tailor-made for residents.

Aesthetically, the store more closely resembles a showroom than a grocery store. And that was the plan.

“It’s an historic building,” he said, “so we had to keep with some of the décor.”

African mahogany that came with the building was reused, along with six 5-foot chandeliers that, according to Rouse, were used in the Rolls Royce showroom of the building.

“We will be one of the few stores with chandeliers in it,” Rouse said.

In addition, some of the old walls in the building were made of blocks of stone no longer produced; those walls stayed up.

“So there will be a wall within the store here and there made of those stones, and it will be a different shopping experience for the customer, but we were able to really put it together where it is so comfortable,” Rouse said.

There are three separate entrances into the four-story store: one from the parking lots above the store (via elevators), one from Girod Street and one from Baronne Street that opens up into the fresh side of the store.

“The Baronne Street entrance is where all of the activity will be going on, from salad bars and fresh-cut fruits and vegetables to the cheese and produce,” Rouse said. Mirrors that once hung in the Cadillac showroom of the building hang in the new Rouses, and a wooden ceiling that was also part of a showroom remains intact.

For a more modern feel to the old-world look, Rouses chose to use all stainless steel equipment in the store.

“There are some elements from the past along with a lot of what’s the newest and greatest in the industry today,” he continued. “We mixed new with old for this store and are proud of it.”

The store features a community room that can be rented out. It also will be used for wine tastings and cooking classes.

“The cooking classes are huge for us,” Rouse said.

While the superficial might draw a crowd initially, it’s a store’s fare that keeps customers coming back, and the new Rouses is certain to do just that.

From full-service espresso, juice and gelato bars to a bakery that makes what Rouse calls “oversized doughnuts,” the new downtown store strives to offer something for everyone and every eating occasion.

“We’ll be growing hydroponic herbs and tomatoes and mushrooms,” Rouse said. “We’ll be making pizzas in our wood-burning oven. We’ll have barbecue, chef-inspired meals and a big chef station where chefs will be cooking to order foods to go.”

“Our seafood department will have the largest selection of whole fish in the city,” Rouse said. “We’ll have live fish there: lobsters, tiger prawns, 12 different types of oysters from around the world including our Louisiana oysters, which we’re so famous for.”

“We’re big into seafood down here, naturally, on the Gulf Coast, and we sell more Louisiana seafood than any other retailer.”

Rouse noted that the downtown store will not only be working with local growers and fishermen to supply the store, but also local artisans that produce anything from candied apples to candles.

But health and wellness items are there, too; Rouses is introducing “1,800 new items to our lifestyle and wellness section in this store,” he said.

“What we’re about is food, and we’re the local company, so we’re excited to be able to bring (these offerings) to New Orleans,” Rouse said, adding that New Orleans “never had the type of grocery stores that I’d see when I went to New York or Dallas or Atlanta, so we’re beginning to put those stores in New Orleans and rightfully so. Our little company has a lot going on.”

Landry Happily Approaching His 40th Year with Rouses

Tim Landry may not be related by blood, but he says he feels like he’s part of the Rouses’ family. Joining the company at 17, while still in high school, he has worked up the ranks to store manager and is coming up on his 40-year work anniversary.

“My uncle worked for Mr. Anthony Rouse, our founder, at the first store they ever owned,” Landry says, adding he had only heard great things about working for the family. “My older brother had worked for them and I was working in fast food during high school but decided grocery might be better and it was…

“I went into the grocery business and Ioved it. It was awesome. Even in high school, at that young age, I kind of really took to it. I thought it was something I’d like to do, for sure.”

He started at the entry level with Donald and Tommy Rouse—two of the sons of founder Anthony Rouse—as his first bosses. Landry says he learned a lot from the brothers. When the Rouses bought their second store, a nearby Piggly Wiggly, he transferred over as an assistant manager. From there, “everything just took off,” Landry says.

From store #2, he went to Raceland when store #3 opened.

“The company just kept growing from there,” he says.

Landry says he also learned a lot from “Mr. Anthony,” whom he saw on nearly a daily basis in his early years with Rouses. He says he witnessed the founder’s strong work ethic, which he also instilled in his sons.

“I learned from him don’t ask anybody to do anything you wouldn’t want to do yourself,” Landry says. “He would do the repairs. He was always on a backhoe, fixing stuff. I learned that a long time ago, and I do the same thing with my team. I’ll do everything I ask them to do—not always just do as I say but do as I do kind of thing, just to set the example. And that goes a long way to build at team, I think.”

Becoming a store manager at age 23, Landry says he has seen many changes in the industry, the greatest of which have been technological advances. He says when he started working in grocery, there were no scanners and everything was priced individually.

“I remember they had your doubting Thomases that would say, ‘oh, no, customers want to see the prices on the product.’ I was like, you know what, if we don’t have to price every item we could try to make this work,” he says, laughing. “It’s like anything, it just took time. That was pretty awesome when the scanners came in. Technology has changed by leaps and bounds.”

Keeping up with the times, and the basics

Landry says while Rouses has kept up and changed with technology, the company has remained true to its roots.

“Our roots are customer service,” he says.

Customers also have changed over the years, with both parents now working in many families. Rouses’ emphasis on customer service has kept its loyal customers happy and attracted new ones.

“Believe it or not, customers are not as picky as they used to be,” Landry says. “Nowadays, I guess everybody’s in such a rush. If you give them decent customer service, that’s all they’re looking for. But we go above and beyond that. We always have, we always will.

“I find the customer is easier to satisfy; it’s not really hard to give great customer service,” he says.

Staying true to those roots of excellent customer service has helped the company continue to expand over the years, Landry says, as the Rouse family believes in taking care of its customers and its employees.

“The success we’ve had, it’s phenomenal. Everywhere we open a store, they love us… people who come in from other parts of the country and say, ‘you guys are good, y’all can do business against anybody in the country.’ And we take that for granted because this is how it has to be. This is our standard and we’re not going to settle for anything less. It’s just ingrained in us and we take pride in that. Nobody’s going to take our business—that’s just how we feel about it.”

—Tim Landry, store director

“I’ve worked for the Rouse family all of my adult life, and they do believe in taking care of their employees,” Landry says. “They know that if they take care of us, we take care of our employees, and our employees will take care of our customers. It works. Don’t get me wrong, you have to have accountability, but you have to make sure that your people know that you care about them, as individuals and as team members. And they’ll do anything for you, basically, if you get them on your side and show that you care for them.”

In the earlier years of the company, getting everyone together for crawfish boils and Christmas parties was the norm, Landry says. As the company has grown, that kind of togetherness is not practical. But while getting everyone together may not be possible, the feeling of family continues to shine through.

“You always feel like you’re part of a big family here,” he says. Being a veteran of the industry, Landry says he enjoys talking to young people who are interested in a career in the grocery business.

“When they show interest, it kind of just rejuvenates you to see that someone else has those aspirations and really takes it seriously

and wants to grow with the company,” he says. “It’s great to see young people coming on board like that.”

Train them up

CEO Donny Rouse, Donald’s son, believes in the importance of training employees. Landry recounted an instance where he and two other managers from different companies were talking. Among the three, they had about 120 years of experience in the business. One of the managers was voicing frustration about an employee.

“I’m like, ‘how long have you spent with him training him?’” Landry says he asked the manager. “‘You take it as second nature because you’ve been doing it so long, but you have to train them. When I started I didn’t know a whole lot. Think back to when you started.’ You’ve kind of got to bring that to people’s attention sometimes. You can’t assume they know it, you have to take the time to teach them.”

He says there are teaching moments in every day, and that’s what he preaches to his department managers.

“Take advantage of those moments and give some of that information,” Landry says. “You can tell when you’re talking to them if they have an interest, they’re going to really pay attention and they’re going to absorb it and they’ll learn. And you can see them using that later, whatever you taught them. It makes it all worthwhile.”

Whether it’s employees or customers, dealing with people is the most challenging part of his job, Landry says, but added there is no situation he can’t diffuse.

“You just have to know how to do it,” he says. “I ask my employees not to make it a worse situation before I get there. Just do everything you can to keep things right, and if you need me, call me and I’ll come in and we’ll

fix it. The answer is yes; that’s our policy. There’s nothing we can’t do for our customer.”

Treating customers and employees right and sticking to its high standards make Rouses a good choice for the Southeast Retailer of the Year award, Landry says.

“The success we’ve had, it’s phenomenal. Everywhere we open a store, they love us,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m amazed by it because our standards are so high. We kind of lose sight of what our standards are or don’t realize how good we are. And there’s people who come in from other parts of the country and say, ‘you guys are good, y’all can do business against anybody in the country.’ And we take that for granted because this is how it has to be. This is our standard, and we’re not going to settle for anything less. It’s just ingrained in us, and we take pride in that. Nobody’s going to take our business—that’s just how we feel about it.”

Landry says it has been a pleasure working for Rouses over the years.

“For that long, the Rouse family’s been great to me, and I just want to pay it back by doing the best job I can,” he says. “They treat me like family as it is. I feel like one of them.”

An example of Rouses’ policy of ‘the answer is yes’

The day before he was interviewed by The Shelby Report, Landry had a customer come in to his store with a bag of flour to return—a brand Rouses does not carry. The bag was damaged. The customer showed it to Landry, where it had been taped up, and said he didn’t want to use it. Then he realized he was trying to return the flour to the wrong store.

“I’m like, ‘no, you came to the right store.’”

Landry told him to go and get a bag of Best Choice flour—Rouses’ private label—“and get self-rising, the same kind, so your wife won’t be angry with you. Then come on up to the counter and we’ll take care of you.”

The man said, “What?”

Landry again told him to go get the flour and added, “I don’t want you going back to that other place. We’re going to save you some time and trouble.”

The man said, “Thank you very much.”

The office cashier pointed out he had just lost a bag of flour, but Landry disagreed.

“I said, ‘no, I’m gaining a customer.’ Do you know how much the average customer spends a year? Next time that customer will be like, ‘wait a minute, these guys did that for me. Those guys sold me a bad bag of flour and this guy made it good.’ I think we did OK.”

Tim Landry, director of Rouses #44 in Raceland, Louisiana.

Pitre Found His Way to Rouses and Never Looked Back

When Ronnie Pitre of Houma, Louisiana, came to family-owned Rouses 23 years ago, he discovered what doing “a lot of business” looked like for a grocery store. After his previous employer, National Supermarkets, was bought by Schwegmann’s, Pitre decided to pursue a job with Rouses. He was hired as a store manager. He says he joined the company because he always had heard good things about the family.

“They were good local people, and you always heard good things about them,” Pitre says. “With all the major chains—and I was with one of them—they were the lone independent, but they were kickin’ our hineys as far as business. They had it. Where we thought we were doing a lot of business, when I came over to Rouses I realized what a lot of business was.”

Pitre says it was like night and day.

“Your eyes were opened to what really doing business is about,” he says.

When Pitre joined Rouses, the company had seven stores. Pitre was named manager of the store located right in front of the corporate office—Rouses #1. Donald Rouse—son of founder Anthony Rouse and a managing partner—lived adjacent to the store with his family, and the district manager lived across the street.

The company was on the cusp of growth about the time he joined Rouses.

“It grew in the first 10 years I was here,” Pitre says. “We went from seven to 16 stores, and then we acquired Sav-A-Center (from A&P) and went to 32 stores.”

Today, Rouses has 60 stores.

He says the company has remained a good place to work and, to his knowledge, has never had layoffs.

CONGRATULATIONS

2018 SOUTHEAST RETAILER OF THE YEAR!

Many attribute the company’s success to founder Anthony Rouse Sr. Pitre says he had the opportunity to work with “Mr. Anthony” many times.

“He was a very hands-on individual and was never happier than when he was on a tractor or a backhoe or doing electrical work,” Pitre says, adding that when his store was relamped, Mr. Anthony was the person who did the work.

“We put somebody to help him put things up and down, but he was on the ladder actually doing it himself.”

When store #4 in Houma was being built, Pitre remembers passing by the building site on his way home from school and seeing Mr. Anthony out there in his blue coveralls.

“That was his favorite color coveralls, baby blue, and he was out there doing it himself,” he says, adding it illustrated the Rouses’ work ethic. “Nothing is beneath you. I mean, I’ll fix a toilet if I need to now because that’s the way we were groomed in the business. We try to save money where we can, so before we call somebody, if it’s something I can fix myself I’m going to fix it myself at the store.”

That work ethic, coupled with open communication between owners and employees, created a positive work atmosphere. Pitre says Rouses always has had an open-door policy.

When Pitre was running #1, he “walked out the back door of my store and went to the (corporate) office, and if I needed to talk to Mr. Donald about something, I knocked on his door and he was right there in the office. He always wanted to hear what you had to say. He always had that finger on the pulse of the business and the people, to hear what was really going on.”

Shooting straight with the boss was a desirable trait for an employee, according to Pitre.

“Like he said when they hired me, he didn’t want a ‘yes’ man—he wanted to hear how things really were. I was always able to tell him (what was going on). If he sat down right here, we would talk just like you and I are talking.”

That strong work ethic and keeping a finger on the pulse of the company has been passed down through the family. Donald’s son, Donny—now CEO and managing partner—grew up in the family business. Pitre says in his first year with Rouses, Donny was 13 years old and his dad sent him to his store to bring in buggies that summer.

Ronnie Pitre is store director of Rouses #6 in Houma, Louisiana.

When Donny first became an assistant manager, he worked with Pitre at store #17.

“It’s amazing just to see the growth in a person, but Donald’s always instilled good values and hard work in Donny, so he had a very good teacher coming up all along,” Pitre says. “And Dad still has his finger on the pulse, though it may be from a distance now sometimes.”

Interaction is the norm

Pitre found it refreshing that Donald Rouse would come into the store and ask what was happening.

“The corporate structure that I came from, you wouldn’t see those (executive) guys but maybe once a year, when they would come in and do some kind of store inspection and grade you,” Pitre says. “And that’s basically the only time you saw them. Never saw them, never heard from them. There was no interaction whatsoever. We are the total opposite here.”

While Rouses has continued to grow over the years, it has become more specialized as a result, Pitre says. While those in the corporate office years ago had to wear many hats, now the roles are more specialized.

“As Mr. Anthony used to always tell us, you can only wear one hat at a time, but you wear plenty of them throughout the day,” he says. “We’ve become more specialized as we’ve grown, like a corporation basically. You know everybody’s more specialized in what they do, where people did multiple, multiple things back then. You went to work and never basically did the same thing in a day. You just didn’t. Whatever needed to be done that day got done.”

Although the company has changed and adapted in some ways, in others it has remained true to its beginnings.

“I feel we never have lost focus of what our mission statement is—to take care of the people,” Pitre says. “People are first. We’re getting like a corporation now, but like I

said, that finger is still on the pulse daily.”

And being family owned gives Rouses flexibility many of its competitors may not have.

“They were good local people, and you always heard good things about (the Rouses). With all the major chains—and I was with one of them—they were the lone independent, but they were kickin’ our hineys as far as business. They had it. Where we thought we were doing a lot of business, when I came over to Rouses I realized what a lot of business was.”

—Ronnie Pitre

“We can change directions on a dime,” Pitre says. “With a corporate structure, it was cookie-cutter stores; they wanted everyone to be the same. But business on my side of town in Houma is different from business on the other side of town in Houma. We can make adjustments more easily, being a family-owned business rather than a corporation. We try to do some things all the same, but some things you just can’t if you’re going to please shoppers in your area.”

Pleasing shoppers is the goal, and Rouses shoppers can be counted on to give feedback about what they like and dislike, Pitre says.

“One thing you’ll learn if you work in the Houma/Thibodaux area is that most people know Mr. Donald or Mr. Donny and they’ll tell you,” Pitre says, laughing. “And that’s fine. (Whatever they are asking for) will be taken care of. We would anyway.”

He’s a people person

Working with people is Pitre’s favorite part of his job. He went to business school for a year and a half with the thought of becoming an accountant.

“But I just couldn’t see myself sitting behind a desk in a cube or behind four walls,” he says. “I’m a people person. I have to be out dealing with the public.”

With that in mind, he returned to the grocery business, which he had been in since high school, starting out as a bagger.

Pitre says the most challenging part of his job these days is “hiring the right people with the right mindset.”

He says there are a lot of good people out there but some just aren’t cut out to work with the public.

“You either have it or you don’t—it’s not something you really can train people on,” he says. “You can train them to do anything else, but they have to be able to handle people.”

Pitre says if you can work with the public, “you can do anything in life.”

He says some people come in the store and just want to talk about their problems, while others—especially elderly customers—come in every day and buy just a little bit.

“They need somebody to talk to,” he says. “You know a lot of people are just cooped up in their house and we’re their social outlet, the community center.”

In an effort to support its community, Rouses offers corporate sponsorships to festivals and to organizations such as NFL football team the New Orleans Saints (Rouses is the Official Supermarket of the Saints), while local stores support their local communities through donations and sponsorships, Pitre says.

“We do what we can,” he says, including making cooler space available to hold perishable items when possible.

When asked his thoughts on Rouses Markets being named 2018 Southeast Retailer of the Year by The Shelby Report, Pitre says the honor is well deserved.

“No one works harder at being successful,” he says. “It may come easy to some people and you may say it’s easy, but it’s a daily job. It’s a full-time job, it really is.”

With second- and now third-generation Rouses now at the helm, confidence in the company’s future continues.

“Donny grew up in the business. He started working with me when he was 13 years old,” Pitre says. “His dad, Mr. Donald, expected great things of Donny and he’s had a high level of expectation and it’s worked. They’ve never lost sight of their main job—taking care of people. It’s not just selling cans of corn; they are very involved in the community.”

Rouses Opened 55th Store in Former Matherne’s Location

Rouses Markets opened its 55th store in November 2017 in the Bluebonnet Village Shopping Center in Baton Rouge.

“Baton Rouge residents have been asking us to build more stores in the area, and we feel like this shopping center has been underserved,” said CEO Donny Rouse at the time. “This is a family-friendly neighborhood. There are a lot of popular restaurants nearby. It’s a great location for us all the way around.”

The store, at the northwest corner of Bluebonnet Boulevard and Perkins Road, got $3 million in upgrades. Formerly home to a Matherne’s Supermarket, Rouses took possession of the space in May and began the remodeling.

Along with conventional, organic and specialty groceries, the store features a full-service bakery, full deli, seafood market, butcher shop, floral shop and an emphasis on prepared foods. Its

selection of fresh food includes a barbecue Chop Shop; a hot line serving breakfast, lunch and dinner; a fresh soup and salad bar; a fresh sushi station; and a chef’s case featuring Rouses signature offerings.

At the time, four Rouses Markets were undergoing renovation, including the location in Hammond, Louisiana, that was acquired from LeBlanc’s Food Stores in August 2016. (Rouses acquired a total of nine LeBlanc’s and Frais Marchés in the Baton Rouge area in 2016.)

Rouses continues to explore new stores in its three-state market.

More photos from the Bluebonnet Village store

Rouses Opens Its First Lower Alabama Store with All the ‘Bells and Whistles’

“I can’t wait for people to see this new store,” said Donny Rouse, CEO, prior to the store’s opening on April 25, 2018. “It’s our first Rouses Market in Lower Alabama to feature all of our bells and whistles.”

The new store is located at Airport Boulevard and Schillinger Road in Mobile.

Those “bells and whistles” include a Chop Shop barbecue station with housesmoked beef, pork and poultry, and a Mongolian Grill serving made-to-order rice and noodle dishes. Other fresh offerings include an extended hot foods bar, hot soup, fresh salad bar and made-in-store sushi.

“Our chef-prepared specialties get their own case,” said Rouse. Customers can learn how to prepare some of those specialties and other favorites in the store’s Culinary Center classroom, which will host events for adults and children, including cooking classes, wine tastings and chef demonstrations.

A full-service butcher shop, specialty meat counter, seafood market, bakery and floral shop join the wine and fresh produce departments lining the perimeter of the 50,000-s.f. store. There’s also a walk-in cold beer cave. A range of products are gathered in an area in the center of the store called the Savings Zone. Up front, a K-cup station allows customers to mix and match brands and flavors to make their own 24-packs.

“This is a brand-new concept for us,” said Rouse.

Local products are featured throughout the store.

“We have amazing food and drink from around the globe, but our first focus is always local,” Rouse added.

Time-crunched customers can utilize “Rouses Express”—another new concept for the company—which is a quick-service section with its own designated checkout. The store’s focus on convenience extends to same-day delivery, a new service introduced earlier this year.

“Of course, I want everyone to experience this new store. We’re very proud of it. But if you don’t have time to come to us, order online and we’ll come to you,” said Rouse.

Rouses Opens in Former Winn-Dixie in Orange Beach, Alabama

Rouses has acquired stores from other operators over most of its 58-year history.

The Winn-Dixie at 25405 Perdido Beach Boulevard in Orange Beach, Alabama, became a Rouses Market in spring 2018.

The 40,000-s.f. store is Rouses’ seventh location in Lower Alabama. Rouses acquired the store from WinnDixie’s parent company, Jacksonville, Florida-based Southeastern Grocers, which filed for bankruptcy protection in March.

After acquiring the store in late April, Rouses performed a “reset and refresh,” reopening a month or so later with an expanded selection of groceries, fresh food and beach gear.

A full remodel of the location was to begin after the busy summer season so as not to disrupt customers.

“The refresh will give Orange Beach a true taste of what we have to offer, like our Gulf seafood, prepared food, famous Gentilly and Doberge cakes (see recipe on page 74) and, of course, our private label products,” said Donny Rouse, CEO, at the time the acquisition was announced.

The expansion into Orange Beach is a natural move for Rouses, a family-owned Gulf Coast grocer that has a store in nearby Gulf Shores and is opening a second location in Mobile next month at 7765 Airport Boulevard.

“We’ve been working closely with the city of Orange Beach to find a location, and we’re fortunate that this one became available,” said Rouse. “The Alabama market, especially Lower Alabama, is an important part of our growth strategy, which includes remodeling existing stores and building new ones.”

Rouses’ Doberge Cake

Doberge, pronounced “doh-bash,” “doh-badge” or “doh-baj,” is widely considered the best cake in New Orleans—and the pride of Rouses’ bakery. This delicious combination of rich vanilla butter cake and creamy custard is topped with ganache, a smooth blend of chocolate (or lemon or caramel) and cream.

Gulf Coast Sweets Get Special Attention in Rouses’ Bakeries

Rouses’ King Cake

No Mardi Gras celebration would be complete without a king cake. Last year alone, Rouses Markets sold more than 500,000 king cakes during the roughly two-month season.

The day after Christmas, Rouses bakery team gets to work on the store’s signature sugar-dusted purple, green and gold cakes (the colors represent, respectively, justice, faith and power). Once Carnival season gets into full swing, it’s a 24-hour operation.

But king cake production at Rouses isn’t just a seasonal affair: It’s a 12-month production. Throughout the year, the cinnamon-filled cakes are both sold locally and shipped across the country to commemorate a host of celebrations. Purple and gold king cakes make appearances at LSU tailgating parties; shimmering black and gold versions for the Saints abound during football season; and the doughy confection dresses up in emerald-green for St. Patrick’s Day.

“When you’ve been in business for nearly 60 years, and you have stores along the parade route from New Orleans, Louisiana to Mobile, Alabama, you see every character and every costume imaginable during Carnival season. And the faces hidden beneath the Mardi Gras masks and makeup are often very familiar; it seems our customers and team members love Mardi Gras as much as my family and I do.”

—Donald Rouse, Chairman of the Board

Fortner: Rouses Looks to the Future Without Letting Go of Its Founding Values

Winnie Fortner, receiving specialist–asset and profit protection, has worked for Rouses for more than a decade, 13 years to be exact. She started her career with Rouses as an assistant store director at store #16 in Thibodaux, two days after Hurricane Katrina hit (see page 54 to see more about Fortner’s experience at Rouses following the storm).

It was Rouses’ “positive reputation” and her desire to be part of a growing team that motivated Fortner to make the switch after spending 14 years with Delchamps and seven years with Cannata’s Food World.

Rouses’ “unlimited visions for the future inspired by and supported by the thirdgeneration leadership,” is what motivates her to stay, Fortner told The Shelby Report

Rouses’ leadership team means a lot to Fortner—she was there for the early days of the third generation, and she has watched their careers develop over the years.

“Donny Rouse was actually my district manager when he was up and coming,” she says. “So to watch him learn and grow with the company and be the leader that he is today is just a great experience.”

Fortner’s experiences working with the second and third generations of the Rouses family afforded her a personal connection with Rouses that she doesn’t believe she could have gotten working at a larger corporation. She offered an example of that personal touch: “During an ice storm a few years back, Allison Royster Rouse sent the employees that were working in the main office home—they were threatened with bridges and roads being iced over—and manned the reception desk herself for the remainder of the day. She was the one answering the phones and sending out the information that was needed.”

Donny Rouse “is always looking for better, smarter ways to create customer satisfaction. Allowing the teams under his leadership to be part of this process creates the right ingredients for building a solid team.”

—Winnie Fortner, receiving specialist

Nimbleness and values keep Rouses relevant

Being a family-owned company not only gives Rouses more opportunity to make these connections with its employees, it also gives it a competitive edge.

“It allows the decision-making to be done at a moment’s notice,” Fortner says. “The reaction time for making a decision is not held up by several people having to make a decision. That keeps us on the cutting edge. (Our competitors) are always having to guess our next move because there’s no red tape involved.”

While Rouses is quick to change and adapt to the future of retailing, it hasn’t lost sight of its founding principles, which were laid down by Anthony Rouse. Among those principles were offering customers the best quality, the best price and the best customer service. Fortner had the opportunity to worth with “Mr. Anthony” on occasion and was able to observe him instilling those values in the next generation of leadership.

“There were times that he would take young managers into the parking lot early in the mornings and ask them, ‘What do you see?’ When he would get the reply, ‘An empty parking lot,’ he would reply, ‘Remember, you earn every car that is parked in this lot.’”

Mr. Anthony was always hands-on with the company and “and he practiced every day teaching his employees,” Fortner says.

While Rouse often played the role of teacher to the next generation of leadership, there was no task in his stores that he felt was too small to tend to.

“At any time, Mr. Anthony would just walk through the back door of the store,” says Fortner. “You never knew where he was coming from because he would just walk through the back door and walk around like any other customer. It was nothing to see him on the equipment or coming in, trying to fix something that wasn’t working properly. He was 100 percent involved—not above anything.”

Rouse’s legacy continues on through his family and company today. There’s not a day that goes by that the Rouse family doesn’t talk about their patriarch, says Fortner.

She can see much of Rouse in the new leadership.

“Donny appears to have that leadership style that his grandfather had—and his father (Donald) had—that allows all associates to express their creativity in their location and take their successes and spread them around the company,” she says. “He is always looking for better, smarter ways to create customer satisfaction. Allowing the teams under his leadership to be part of this process creates the right ingredients for building a solid team within the organization and staying on the cutting edge of trends in each area we operate in.”

It’s this attitude and dedication to the foundation laid by Anthony Rouse, as well as Rouses’ nimbleness, that Fortner believes has led the company to grow and thrive during a time when much of the industry has struggled.

“We are a strong, quick-growing company with a tremendous amount of opportunity for individuals to come aboard and have a solid career in leadership,” Fortner adds. “Our nearly-60-year track record is proof that we are an industry leader.”

Winnie Fortner

Rouses, Tyson ‘Educate & Inspire’ at New Orleans Fried Chicken Festival

Rouses Markets was the exclusive grocery sponsor of the 2017 Fried Chicken Festival in New Orleans, Sept. 23-24. Tyson Foods and Rouses collaborated on the free outdoor festival that featured food, music and other festivities. Rouses and Tyson were united in the goal of educating consumers about the value of prepared foods from the supermarket and inspiring them to purchase them more often.

The event was promoted in-store at Rouses, via social media and e-blasts to subscribers of regional publications. Rouses’ free maga zine, myRouses Everyday, featured wings— which Rouses sold from its booth at the festival—on its cover. Wings recipes were featured in the magazine.

More than 166,000 people were drawn to the weekend festival, according to Tyson, and the city of New Orleans realized an economic boost of more than $4 million.

The festival included a Rousesbranded cooking demo stage called The Sizzle Shack. Rouses’ Chef Marc Ardoin and Chef Nino (Neil Anthony Thibodaux) demonstrated easyto-make meals using fresh produce and chicken from the deli. Other area chefs, including Jeff Henderson, Karen Duncan, Wayne Baquet Sr., Michael Gulotta, Jeff Heard, Chris Hayes and Alex Harrell, also were featured on The Sizzle Shack stage.

As part of its support of the event, Tyson donated nearly 17,000 pounds of product to Liberty’s Kitchen, which “provides New Orleans young people with pathways to create and achieve their vision of success through workforce training, leadership development, and support of healthy lifestyles.” Tyson also hired 10 members of Liberty’s Kitchen to work the Rouses booth during the festival. Visit libertyskitchen.org for more information.

Rouses Chef Marc Ardoin and his assistant assemble sandwiches fit for entertaining and tailgating.

Rouses’ Chef Nino communicated tips, tricks and recipes from the Rouses Deli.

Rouses sold three different chicken wing flavors from its booth at the festival.

“The store’s magazines have all been excellent. I wait for the next issue to show up in the rack by the store’s entrance like it’s a holiday. The roster of writers gets more impressive with every issue and the content has moved my heart and my soul.”

—Tatyana Meshcheryakova, New Orleans

Rouses Makes Calcasieu Parish Debut with Sulphur Store; Second Follows in Moss Bluff

Rouses Markets opened its first store in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, on Sept. 12, 2018—its 57th location. Customers were lined up outside the store at 800 Carlyss Boulevard in Sulphur long before doors opened at 7 a.m. Donny Rouse, CEO, personally greeted customers as they entered.

Opening-day festivities included a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the mayor and West Calcasieu Chamber of Commerce; visits from

The Sulphur store

McNeese State University cheerleaders and mascot; and a performance by the Cajun band The Classics.

Rouses offered product giveaways throughout the day and samplings storewide.

The new store includes a Chop Shop barbecue station with house-smoked beef, pork and poultry and a Mongolian Grill serving made-to-order rice and noodle dishes. Other fresh offerings include

made-in-store sushi and poke bowls, and a chef’s case with Rouses signature offerings.

The Moss Bluff store, at 1351 Sam Houston Jones Parkway, opened Oct. 24. The Rouses Markets team spent nearly a year preparing to open the new store, its 59th (58 opened in Covington Sept. 26).

Like its sister in Sulphur, the Moss Bluff location features everything Rouses Markets is known for, from Cajun specialties to Gentilly cakes. It features an expansive produce department that offers hundreds of local, seasonal and organic fresh fruits and vegetables, according to Rouses. A BBQ Chop Shop serves in-store smoked beef, pork and poultry, as well as boudin, the Louisiana delicacy. It also features a Mongolian Grill.

The Moss Bluff store

More photos from the Sulphur store

Covington, Louisiana, Store Is Grocer’s 58th

Rouses Markets and the Rouse family celebrated the grand opening of their 58th location on Sept. 26, 2018. The 35,000-s.f. store anchors the Copperstill Marketplace at the southeast corner of Highway 1077 and Highway 1085 in Covington, Louisiana.

The store was a year in the making and features “all of the bells and whistles.” These include a BBQ Chop Shop with house-smoked beef, pork and poultry; a Mongolian Grill serving made-to-order rice and noodle dishes; handmade sushi and poke bowls; and a chef’s case filled with Rouses signature offerings.

More photos from the Covington store

Rouses in the news...

Current: Local reports: Downtown New Orleans Rouses in the planning stages for 2020 opening

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported Oct. 24, 2018, that Rouses is planning to open a full-service grocery store in the city’s Uptown area in a former thrift store.

The storefront is at 4645 Freret Street, where Blooming Deals Thrift Shop, which was operated by the Junior League of New Orleans, used to operate.

Citing a letter from CEO Donny Rouse, the paper said the store would be about 10,000 s.f. In addition, Rouses is proposing a 4,500s.f. warehouse and regional office adjacent to the store, said the Times-Picayune, adding that the latter would be a two-story structure.

“The neighborhood is overwhelming in support of the Rouses Market,” Michelle Ingram of Zeus’ Place, a member of the Freret Improvement District, told the paper. “We’ve needed a grocery store for years and we welcome one that has adequate parking for the neighborhood it’s going into.”

A mandatory neighborhood meeting on the project was held Nov. 7 at the proposed store site.

According to a story on UptownMessenger.com following the meeting, neighbors in the area are in favor of the store, calling it a food desert.

A proposed grocery store is a permitted use for the property, but several conditional-use permits would be required for the project.

If the city approves Rouses’ plan to expand the store from its current 8,500 to 10,000 s.f., sell packaged alcoholic beverages and be able to warehouse and process foods on the property, construction would start in August 2019 and the store open the following year, according to UptownMessenger.com.

The Times-Picayune said the conditional use permits will be reviewed by the City Planning Commission, which will then make a recommendation on the project to the New Orleans City Council.

The only Rouses that would be smaller than the proposed Freret store is the 4,500-s.f. French Quarter location on Royal Street.

From July 2017:

Rouses in Ocean Springs Getting $2.5M Remodel

Rouses Markets is investing more than $2.5 million in a renovation of its Ocean Springs, Mississippi, store at 3164 Bienville Boulevard. CEO Donny Rouse says customers can expect extensive changes, more choices and a bigger focus on fresh and prepared foods. The renovation is expected to take four months.

“My family doesn’t just sell local, we think local down to how we lay out a store,” said Rouse. “Our first question is always, ‘How can we make this store an even better fit for the neighborhood?’”

The renovation is making room for a larger selection of prepared foods, baked goods, frozen food, and organic and specialty items.

“We’re also doing new layouts of our deli, bakery, seafood and floral departments to give customers a better shopping experience,” said Rouse. “I think people will really like the new layout.”

New floors and lighting also are being installed at store. Most work will be done at night to avoid inconveniencing customers, according to the grocer.

Ocean Springs is one of several remodels Rouses is undertaking this year. Rouses on St. Mary Street in the company’s hometown of Thibodaux, Louisiana, recently was updated. A newly acquired space at the Bluebonnet Village Shopping Center in Baton Rouge currently is being renovated and is slated for an early fall opening. The Gulf Coast grocery chain operates 46 stores in Louisiana and has eight stores in Mississippi and Lower Alabama.

It’s not unusual for a parade to move through the aisles at Rouses, whether for a new store opening, Mardi Gras or other celebration. The particular parade was led by the venerable Treme Brass Band from the New Orleans neighborhood of that name. Local flavor indeed.

From July 2017: Rouses Is Official Supermarket of the New Orleans Saints

Rouses Markets has entered into a multi-year partnership with the New Orleans Saints to become the official supermarket of the NFL team.

The Louisiana-based grocery chain will kick off this year’s football season by being an associate partner of the 2017 New Orleans Saints Training Camp presented by Verizon. Rouses will provide an area for Saints fans to cool off during the team’s hot practices in Louisiana with a Cool Zone misting area and shaded tents. Saints fans will have the opportunity to avoid long lines with fast pass entry into Saints training camp (limited numbers apply) and reserved shaded seating from Rouses.

Additionally, Rouses will actively participate in a celebration of “Back to Football” with Saints-themed promotions throughout July, August and September. The grocer will offer special promotions and placements throughout its stores with leading national vendors, which will provide Saints fans with savings all the while celebrating a return to rooting on the Black-and-Gold.

Rouses commitment to the Saints begins this summer and will highlight the relationship between the team and the 47-store regional supermarket chain through special promotions during the entire calendar year, including Rouses Pre-Game Tailgate Sweepstakes, in-game promotions and branding, and a chance to be a Saint for A Day and travel to an away Saints game this season.

“Rouses is a true Louisiana success story,” said Saints President Dennis Lauscha. “They have grown from a single store in Houma, Louisiana, to a major force across the Gulf South region and one of the largest independent grocers in the United States. Besides offering all of the national brands, they are committed to supporting local farmers, fishermen, chefs and food manufacturers, and highlighting the unique culture

and tastes across this great region. We are excited about our partnership with Rouses and are confident our fans will find all of their needs at any of the countless Rouses locations in our communities. We welcome them as part of our team and look forward to a great partnership.”

Rouses CEO Donny Rouse added, “We live, eat and play local. We’re die-hard Saints fans. This is more than just a sponsorship. It’s a partnership between two home teams and a shared commitment to everything Gulf Coast.”

As part of the partnership with the Saints, Rouses employees can earn the opportunity to be rewarded for their outstanding customer service with unique experiences ranging from Saints tickets and pre-game field access, VIP experiences at training camp, as well as a trip to the Pro Bowl, among other incentives.

From November 2016:

Lucky’s Market Leader Steve Black Joins Rouses as President, COO

Steve Black, previously president of Lucky’s Market, a specialty grocery chain focused on natural, organic and locally grown products, has been named president and COO of Rouses Markets, effective in December. Donny Rouse, CEO of Rouses Markets, made the announcement. Rouse recently assumed his new role as CEO of the 56-year-old Thibodaux, Louisiana-based company. Before that he was managing partner. Rouse is the third generation to lead the family business.

Black brings 40 years of retail experience to the role. Before joining Lucky’s Market in Colorado, Black was VP of operations, CIO and CMO of Sprouts Farmers Markets. He also has served as VP of operations, IT and marketing for Sunflower Farmers Market and was the transitional executive during the Sprouts/Sunflower merger. His previous experience includes Bruno’s Supermarkets and United Supermarkets, where he spent the majority of his career.

“Steve brings another level of expertise to our business,” said Rouse. “He has an enormous passion for the business, and key management experience at all levels from operations to marketing and IT.”

Black will replace Scott Miller, who has been the company’s COO for the past nine years, during which time Rouses has tripled in size thanks to an aggressive growth strategy. The company’s most recent acquisition was LeBlanc’s Food Stores, which included nine locations in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area.

“Scott has been a tremendous asset to our team,” said Rouse. “He helped us grow from 15 stores in Louisiana to 54 stores in three states. He has my family’s respect and colleagues’ respect and our thanks for the success he brought us.”

Miller will remain as a consultant to the Rouse family during the transition.

Black and his family will relocate from Boulder to Thibodaux.

“Steve has a great reputation for developing talent and inspiring people,” said Rouse. “With his leadership skills, and the team we have in place now, I am extremely confident that we will continue to grow and thrive for generations to come.”

From October 2016: Rouses, LeBlanc’s to Join Forces in Louisiana

Two Louisiana families, the Rouses and LeBlancs, each have built their own successful chain of grocery stores. Now they are combining forces under one banner, Rouses Markets, to increase their Gulf Coast market reach.

LeBlanc’s Food Stores has nine stores. Five of them, operating as Frais Marché, are located in Baton Rouge, Zachary, Duplessis, Gonzales, and Prairieville. Four additional LeBlanc’s are located in Donaldsonville, Hammond, Plaquemine and Plattenville.

The transition, expected to be complete later in October, will give Rouses Markets 54 stores.

The Oct. 1 announcement came a little more than a month since Rouses Markets opened its first store in Baton Rouge, but the deal has been in the planning stages for a while, according to Rouses, which added that the Rouse and LeBlanc families are longtime friends and share a common philosophy, history and commitment to community.

Brittney LeBlanc, from the fourth generation of family-owned LeBlanc’s, and Donny Rouse.

“This really is a perfect fit,” said Donny Rouse, managing partner of Rouses Markets, which is based in Thibodaux. “We share very similar values. We have both built our businesses on quality, selection, service and low prices. We are both strong community supporters. We are both dedicated to buying local and supporting local fishermen and farmers.”

Rouses Markets was founded 66 years ago by Anthony J. Rouse Sr., Donny Rouse’s grandfather. It has tripled in size in the past decade by way of an aggressive strategy that included new stores in south Louisiana, and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and lower Alabama. The company has consistently been voted best supermarket and best place to work.

L.C. LeBlanc opened the first LeBlanc’s Food Stores in Gonzales in 1961. His sons Marcy and Randy helped grow the company into one of the largest independent grocers in Louisiana.

In a prepared statement announcing the sale, Marcy and Randy LeBlanc thanked their customers and employees for their years of service and dedication. “We both want to thank all of our current and past employees for their contributions to the success of LeBlanc’s. Without you, none of this would have been possible. The continued success of the supermarket operations we built are now with an established company well positioned to compete in a competitive retail environment.”

LeBlanc’s associates will join Rouses.

From April 2016:

Rouses Debuting First Tangipahoa Parish Store

Gulf Coast grocer Rouses will open a store in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, on Wednesday, April 20, in a former Winn-Dixie space at Berryland Shopping Center. It will be the first Rouses Market in Tangipahoa Parish.

“For starters, we carry everything local from seafood and produce to entire lines

of locally made products, not just one or two selections. We have our own sausage kitchen, smokehouse, bakery and seafood boiling room in the store. Our butchers grind our beef fresh throughout the day—Winn-Dixie doesn’t do that. And we hand-cut our steaks,” says managing partner Donny Rouse.

Service is as important to Rouses as what it makes and sells, according to the company.

“We have double the number of team members of a typical Winn-Dixie,” says Rouse.

The store’s grand opening Wednesday will start with a performance of the National Anthem by the Ponchatoula High Band and ribbon cutting at 7:45 a.m. In-store samplings will include local favorites and Rouses exclusives.

In addition, over the course of the week, Rouses will give away bags of private label groceries to 200 customers.

This is the second grand opening for Rouses in less than 60 days. The company recently opened a new store in Kenner, Louisiana.

“We’re continuing to grow,” says Rouse. “We’re opening a brand new Rouses Market in the Long Farm development at Airline and Jefferson Highway in Baton Rouge this summer. It’s our first for Baton Rouge.”

From November 2015:

Construction Under Way on Rouses First Baton Rouge Store

Construction of the new Rouses Market on Airline Highway in the Long Farm Village development in Baton Rouge is officially under way. Bulldozers have broken ground on the 55,000-s.f. store—the company’s first in Baton Rouge.

“We are very, very excited about opening in Baton Rouge,” said Donald Rouse Sr., second-generation owner. “We’ve had hundreds of requests to build a store in the area. Baton Rouge is clearly hungry for a Rouses Market.”

Donny Rouse Jr., managing partner and real estate developer for the 55-year-oldcompany, says a second Baton Rouge location already is under contract.

“Long Farm is the kind of store a progressive city like Baton Rouge deserves,” said Rouse Jr. “It’s our most modern concept, completely interactive, with exposed kitchens and open departments that provide customers a view of how the store actually works.”

Rouse Sr. added, “For years we’ve been telling people how we work with local farmers and fishermen and manufacturers. Now they can see the actual deliveries as they’re received.”

Customers also can watch Rouses butchers, bakers, florists and chefs and cooks while they work.

“We’re all about sharing what we do and what we make with our customers,” said Rouse Jr.

Long Farm will open next summer. Rouses new store on Williams Boulevard in Kenner is scheduled to open in February. Another store in Ponchatoula will open in April.

“We’re also breaking ground on a new location in our hometown of Thibodaux in early 2016,” said Rouse. “My family’s business started on the bayou, so this one has special meaning for us. We’re building a brand new store from the ground up for loyal Rouses customers who have shopped with us from the beginning.”

From February 2015:

Rouses to Take Over Two Winn-Dixie Stores in Louisiana

Rouses Markets plans to open new stores in Kenner and Ponchatoula, Louisiana, taking over buildings that currently are occupied by Winn-Dixie.

The New Orleans Advocate reports that Rouses will open in Kenner this summer at 4041 Williams Boulevard, moving out of its current spot at 1000 West Esplanade.

Plus, the chain was unable to renegotiate a lease on the space. Rouses will take up the 55,000-s.f. space on Williams Boulevard.

The Thibodaux-based grocer will open its first Ponchatoula location, going into a store in the Berryland Shopping Center. The WinnDixie store in that spot is set to close in October, possibly sooner, Rouse said. If all goes well, a Rouses could open in the 48,000-s.f. space by the end of the year.

“We’ve had a lot of requests to get into that market,” he added. “But we didn’t have the right opportunity to get the right location.”

Rouses has 45 locations stretching from Lafayette to Gulf Shores, Alabama. The chain is planning a store in Baton Rouge, on Airline Highway, in the Long Farm Village development. Last month, a location in Denham Springs opened in the Juban Crossing mixed-use development.

“The first week of Juban Crossing was the largest grand opening we ever had,” Rouse said.

Remembering Matriarch Joyce Rouse

From the January/February 2018 issue of “My Rouses Everyday” magazine

Italian Flavors and Traditions

Since 1925, the Veroni family has been handcrafting Salume in the northern hills of Italy. Four generations have upheld the same original recipes of gourmet mortadella, artisanal hams and slow aged salame. With Veroni’s thin sliced meats, you can now enjoy the true flavors of Italy in your own home.

From our family to yours… Congratulazioni to Rouses!

60th Store Now Open

Featuring some purple and yellow finishes befit ting a store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana—home of the LSU Tigers—Rouses Markets opened its 60th store on Nov. 8. The store is located at 600 Arlington Creek Centre Boulevard.

Here are some Facebook photos from opening day.

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