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8 MY ROUSESEVERYDAY JULY | AUGUST 2015
the Anniversary issue
ciro’s Supermarket
Tony Rouse
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
and fix everything.
The day of the grand opening they made
$300.
At first, it was just daddy, Ciro and two
employees, Wilfred 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. My brothers Wayne, Donald,
Tommy and I would stock shelves and bag
and carry groceries.
We were raised in the trade. Mr. Wilfred
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, shallots and oranges from
neighborhood farms. Daddy bought from
everyone. Mr. Leland taught us all how to
cut meat — I had to stand on a Coke case
to reach the saw. I think we all learned to
drive in the old store 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.
Tommy Rouse
We were doing boat orders from the
beginning. Three days a week, one of us
— usually Donald — would get up at four
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.Today we deliver
to offshore service vessels, platforms, lift
boats and inland tugs all over the Gulf Coast.
The captains and crews love it when the big
Rouses van pulls up full of food.
ROUSES #1
Donald Rouse
When Ciro retired in 1975, I bought his
shares in the business. From the moment I
signed, my father treated me like a partner.
He gave me the opportunity to make
decisions and learn. I tried to do the same
with my son, Donny, when he was coming
up in the business.
Dad was already building our second store
by then, Rouses #1 on St. Mary Street in
Thibodaux, just yards from where we lived.
At the time, the typical grocery size was
20,000 square feet. #1 was 28,000. 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). 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.
Our butcher at Rouses #1 was Carroll
Zeringue. He’s now one of our meat buyers.
Dad made hogshead cheese and boudin
in the backyard. He and Carroll 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.
Rouses #1 was probably the first grocery store
in Louisiana with a bar code scanner. The
first UPC codes weren’t even invented until
the early 1970s, and the first supermarket
scanner wasn’t installed until 1974.
“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 Buyer
Mr. Anthony J. Rouse, circa 1975