Background Image
Previous Page  15 / 60 Next Page
Information
Show Menu
Previous Page 15 / 60 Next Page
Page Background ROUSES.COM

13

HURRICANES

ROUSES HISTORY

really been neglected. We cleaned them

and fixed them up and added 4,000 local

products before we reopened them one and

two at a

time.We

kept every A&P and Sav-

A-Center employee who wanted a job.

Marcy Nathan,

Creative Director

When the doors opened on our first New

Orleans store — Carrollton in Mid City —

I was first in line for the second line. Like

so many New Orleanians, I lost everything

in Katrina. I had been working with

Rouses for three years, and my friends and

colleagues immediately stepped in to help

me. But it wasn’t until Rouses stepped in

to replace Sav-A-Center that that I knew

things would be okay. Rouses kept stores

in neighborhoods that desperately needed

them, and jobs in Louisiana andMississippi.

Jeremy Simmons,

Store Director

I was a store manager for Sav-A-Center

when Rouses took over the stores in

Louisiana and Mississippi. Rouses didn’t

just come in and clean up the stores, they

built up variety, they added staff, they

responded to customer request —you knew

Rouses was local. Customers were excited

that a local company took over; employees

were excited that a local company took over.

I was never so proud to be a local.

Slidell

Donny Rouse

Rouses on Gause Boulevard opened in

November, 2006, fourteen months after

Katrina, less than a year after we opened

the Rouses in Mandeville. It was our fourth

epicurean-style store. Pa helped Slidell

firemen, police and EMT’s raise the flag

in our parking lot in honor of Hurricane

Katrina’s first responders. It was a very

emotional moment for everyone.

HURRICANE GUSTAV

Ali Rouse Royster

Hurricane Gustav came ashore as a category

2 in Cocodrie, a small fishing community

south of Houma, in September, 2008. It was

the first major storm threat since Katrina,

and most of our area evacuated. As soon

as the storm passed, those who stayed

behind started looking for supplies. Most

of our family was still in town, so we did

what Rouses do, we opened our grocery

store. There were enough of us, plus a few

of our team members who were around and

ready towork— includingmy now-husband

Billy, an accountant who came to stock

shelves to pitch in — to open our store on

North Canal in Thibodaux. I took charge

of our cash registers, teaching some of my

family how to ring up groceries for the first

time (my cousin Chris Acosta brought me

his till at the end of the day with crumpled

up money all mixed up). My dad even ran a

register for a while, which was fun for me to

watch. It had probably been 25 years since

he had done that.

Pa was there overseeing it all and was

beaming from ear to ear. He talked about

it for months, and you could tell how proud

he was that we could still run a store with

mostly just family after all those years. He

passed away a little over 6 months later,

and I have no doubt that this was one of

the many, many stories he shared with his

cousin Ciro when they met again.