The much-heralded Matherne’s Supermarket in downtown Baton Rouge officially opens for business tonight with an open house from 6 to 8 p.m. To mark the opening of downtown’s first grocery store in nearly 50 years, the event will include free food samples and remarks from the store’s owners, as well as city officials.
Though the downtown Matherne’s began selling some groceries and prepared foods more than two weeks ago, it wasn’t completely stocked or ready to offer a full store of items and services until now, says Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer, who for years advocated and campaigned for a full-service supermarket downtown.
“This is one of the silver bullet projects that will cause so much else to happen down here, particularly for residential development,” Rhorer says. “We have a full-service grocery store now, plus a pharmacy—the types of things that are important for people living here. People are just ecstatic. It’s great.”
The store is located on the ground floor of the former Capital One bank building, which is newly rechristened as 440 on Third. A ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for 5-7 p.m. Thursday to celebrate the opening of the U.S. Agencies offices, which will be located in the building.
Meanwhile, another long-awaited supermarket celebrated its opening today. Rouses Market opened a 50,000-square-foot store in the Juban Crossing Development in Denham Springs. The supermarket, which will be one of the anchor tenants in the new Livingston Parish development, will employ 200 and feature a café and grill with indoor and outdoor seating. It is the first of several Rouses planned for the Capital Region. —Stephanie Riegel
