25 Years:

Franklin Supermarket is celebrating 25 years of business next week; and it is not the only grocery store in town, but it may be the friendliest.
Co-owner Rory Romero shares ownership duties with his brother Kerwin, and Rory asserts that the thing that makes Franklin Supermarket the success it has been for the last quarter of a century is that its employees and its patrons are like friends and family.
As Rory said this, a grumbling customer walked by with two full hams, one hanging from each fist.
Rory asked her what was the matter and if he could help her find anything.
She stopped and said, “No, I’m looking for my husband. I just can’t get him to quit talking.”
Rory laughed and said, “Well, I don’t know where he is. Oh, there he is,” standing by the freezers talking to another shopper.
And if overstimulating conversation is the sole complaint of shopping progress, there are probably worse situations to be in.
As you looks around Franklin Supermarket, you begins to notice warm conversations here and there, all over the store. It is a common sight for anyone who has visited and stopped to notice the phenomenon. But, not all markets contain the same atmosphere.
“It’s like a big family here,” Rory said. “Our customers know all our workers, and that’s the biggest key (to success) besides our employees. They make it a friendly store.
“Over all these years, we have made so many friends. We may not know all their names, but we know their faces. And… we know most of their names, too. It’s been fun.”
Kerwin added that the success of their store is due to their being independent, and the freedom that provided. “We came here,” he said. “We met our customers, and we learned their names. And so, we made it a family,” a pleasantry which is not usually available at a bigger, chain store.
Rory said that aside from the atmosphere and employee loyalty, from a business perspective, he estimated the success of Franklin Supermarket could be attributed in large part to the meat and produce departments.
Pointing to the meat section, Rory said, “We still do it the old fashioned way. The meat is cut fresh daily. All these steaks and roasts are all cut by hand. The bones are cut by saw and the ground meat is ground fresh every day.
“That’s been the backbone of our business.”
As for produce, Rory said they get produce deliveries all day every day, so that the produce stays fresh.
“One thing about folks around here is they love to cook,” Rory said. “In a lot of other cities like Baton Rouge, for example, the markets are changing.”
He attributes the changes to a faster paced metropolitan market and the popularity of ready-made dinners that come packaged to-go and need only to be cooked, to save time and effort.
“But here,” Rory said, “people still love to cook. So, we are in good shape.”
The market was originally owned by Rory, Kerwin and their father, Eddie “Chip” Romero.
Kerwin said they owned a market in New Iberia called Chip’s Supermarket, “and when National (in Franklin) went out of business, they sold us this place in ‘94.”
He said they worked both markets for a couple of years, but closed the New Iberia store in 1996, to work at Franklin Supermarket full-time.
Rory said that Chip passed away 10 years ago, which left his brother and him the sole proprietors of the supermarket.
Rory also said the market has been run the same way since day one, having seen no distinct barriers to success after 1996.
In reference to the longevity of the place, Rory ultimately laid it at the feet of the employees, saying, “Our biggest asset has been our employees. You are only as good as your employees, and we’ve been lucky.
“We are family. A lot of the employees do things together on their off time, and when we started here, we (Rory, Kerwin and Chip) were down here working with them. We were down the aisles stocking and taking orders. So, we don’t ask them to do anything we wouldn’t do. They’re loyal and we’re loyal.”
Franklin Supermarket’s 25th anniversary ad will be in this Wednesday’s edition of the Banner-Tribune.