The Rayne store is the only major player in town. It's a very intact 80's store, with some modern touches. The Deli-Bakery is still together and does well. There are two smaller stores in town, but they are far removed from this one. The sign upgrade is very recent, and they moved the faces of the old sign to the I-10 side of the store.pseudo3d wrote:Not sure how Winn-Dixie still survives in Louisiana, they seem to have updated the facade (store lettering only) of an old 1970s specimen in Rayne that had "The Beef People" still on the sign, and in Lafayette, there was a classic 1980s Winn-Dixie Marketplace (at least the facade, no idea on inside). Given how dated many of the stores are, not sure how Rouses could pick them up.
That said, they have a good showing in New Orleans (no other regional/national chain besides Rouses, which is almost exclusively found there) and Baton Rouge (competing against independents but also Albertsons).
The Lafayette store you saw was most likely the Ambassador Caffrey store. It does well because the closest stores to it are an Albertsons that is, well, misplaced; and the old Winn Dixie in Scott that's now a Piggly Wiggly. It's pretty isolated, and it does have the original 90's interior. Only one store west of the Mississippi has been fully remodeled, and that's the Breaux Bridge store; it was redone just after Walmart opened the Supercenter there.
If you saw the Moss Street store, that's a different case. That store has been added and modified so many times it's hard to tell what was where. I do know this; that store and Rayne were of the same build at almost the same time. The Moss Street store was expanded because prior to Walmart and Albertsons, there was NO competition on that side of town. Even now, it's the only real player in that neighborhood. Its interior is from the 90's. It originally had a cafe and a salad bar that have been removed. There is a lot of open space in this store. I work very close to it, and go there often. I'm really waiting for them to close it.
Rouses buys these stores because they're cheap; WD wants out of them, and will do so at pretty much any price. Raceland was a dog; it was far from the DC and hard to get to from there. It was a no-brainer to sell that one. Ponchatoula is a mystery to me; the DC is just up I-55 in Hammond, so it's close to there. Walmart just opened a Supercenter there as well; that may have factored into the decision to sell.
I wouldn't call the showing in New Orleans and Baton Rouge good any more. New Orleans is and always has been a strange place. Independents do far better; go to Dorignac's in Metairie or any of the Breaux Mart stores. Rouses is doing incredibly well there. The local guys listen to their customers and do what is dictated; WD survives by doing what they've always done. Even Albertsons has drastically reduced the presence in Baton Rouge.