“Everything’s made from scratch…we try to make it as close to home cooking as we can.”
Wayne Gary, Gary’s Inc.
So much has changed so quickly along Johnston Street—malls and multiplexes spring up and wither away, followed by the next wave of shopping centers and supermarkets. Now and again, though, you’ll happen upon a place that has managed to put down long lasting roots, like Gary’s Inc. For fifty years, Wayne Gary’s family business has been tucked away in the same spot right off of Johnston Street. Back then, Mr. Wayne delivered groceries from the family’s thriving market with a wagon attached to his tricycle.
Nowadays, instead of delivering groceries, Gary’s Inc. is serving up good eats. Starting in the late 1970s, Gary’s began offering breakfast and lunch, just to supplement the store’s grocery business. But it’s hard to keep a good plate lunch secret, and so now customers come by Gary’s to get a “Big G Burger,” a delicious half-pound of 100% all-beef between two buns. Mr. Wayne makes the hamburgers himself, while his wife and brother-in-law handle the plate lunches.
At lunchtime on Tuesdays, customers crowd in to pick up a chicken stew, and some come back on Fridays for Gary’s crawfish fettuccini. Both dishes are very popular, so loyal customers have learned to come early if they want their share—especially when it comes to the Tuesday chicken stew. Gary’s will serve up some 120 plates of this delicious home-style favorite that day each week. Little wonder; it’s even better, he claims, than the one his grandmother used to make for him. The grillades are what makes the stew so good, Mr. Wayne insists; it’s all in the grillades, which is the meat that comes off of the bone and browns on the bottom of the pot when cooking a stew.
Other customers pull off of Johnston Street to pick up a plate of Gary’s black-eyed peas, or the red beans and sausage, cooked by kitchen man Charles Noel. Mr. Noel recalls being about seven years old and peering into a big pot stirred by his grandmother. She was a “tremendous cook,” Mr. Noel remembers fondly, and he credits his grandmother with passing on to him the knowledge of this region’s traditional cuisine.
It’s been a long time since anyone has delivered groceries in a wagon on Johnston Street. But visitors to Gary’s Inc. still find a few goods to take home with them, such as jars of homemade mustard and chow-chow. A spoonful of Gary’s chow-chow is especially good, Mr. Wayne says, in a bowl of [Gumbo][Gumbo]
Perhaps no other dish in south Louisiana attracts as much attention or is the cause of so many arguments as gumbo. It has, in many ways, come to stand for the region itself. There are a number of good reasons for this: the word gumbo is of African or....