Rouses taking over Bluebonnet Matherne's

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Rouses Markets said it has signed a lease agreement to move into a space in the Bluebonnet Village Shopping Center currently occupied by Matherne’s Supermarket.

Donny Rouse, chief executive officer of the Thibodaux-based grocery chain, said the Rouses store at 7580 Bluebonnet won’t open until at least September. The space will undergo $3 million in renovations.

Matherne’s will close the store Tuesday. Rouses will take over the inventory and start the remodeling right away. Already, perishable items such as produce and flowers were in short supply at the store Tuesday morning.

“We’re going to gut the entire store,” Rouse said. “There will be all new cases, a new floor. It will be a new store.”

The Bluebonnet store will have a “smaller, boutique feel," Rouse said. It will be about 32,000 square feet, whereas the Rouses in Long Farm Village on Airline Highway is 55,000 square feet. About 75 people will work in the store.

This will be the 11th Rouses in metro Baton Rouge. The chain opened locations in Juban Crossing in Denham Springs and Long Farm Village. In October, the company bought the nine local LeBlanc's Food Stores. The two stores in Gonzales and one each in the Drusilla Shopping Center, Prairieville, Zachary, Donaldsonville, Plaquemine and Plattenville have been rebranded. The company also is planning to open a store in a new shopping center that will be built at the corner of West Lee and Burbank drives.

Rouses has grown through aggressive expansions. Over the past 10 years, the chain has acquired stores that also belonged to Sav-A-Center, Choice Supermarkets and Belle Foods.

Rouse said Baton Rouge residents have been asking him to open more stores in the area. The Bluebonnet location is a good spot for the company.

“This is a family friendly neighborhood. There are a lot of popular restaurants nearby,” he said.

Rouse said he started talking with Matherne’s at the end of 2016.

He said Matherne’s wanted to concentrate on its other locations, which include a store in downtown Baton Rouge and supermarkets in LaPlace and Paulina.

The employees at the Bluebonnet store will be shifted to other Matherne’s locations.

Matherne’s had an agreement to sell the Bluebonnet store to New Orleans-based Robért Fresh Market in April 2016. That deal fell through, although Robért did take over the former Matherne’s store at 7355 Highland Road and recently started an extensive expansion and remodeling of the space.

This will be the 55th Rouses store. The company has 46 stores in Louisiana and eight locations in Mississippi and Alabama. Rouse said the chain is looking at new stores in all of the states where it operates.