A History of Russell's Food Center

A small family-run business continues to thrive for nearly three quarters of a century now in downtown Arnaudville, Louisiana. Located in the heart of Acadiana, Arnaudville, known as La Junction implies the fork of the bayou Teche and the Bayou Fusselier in the very center of a once thriving rural, southern town built on cotton sugar cane and sweet potato. The result is a town center served by two bridges providing quick glimpses of a miniature island of sediment built up in the center of the crosscurrents converging from both tributaries.

This family run business is now supported by fifth-generation descendants of original owners George Clifton Coles and his wife Nora Castille Coles and their two young children Joseph Richard J.R. Coles and Wilda Mae Sis Coles Benoit. As many young families today, George and Nora moved from this area seeking work during the aftermath of the Great Depression. After a hard émigré in the oil fields of Arkansas, a relative informed George of an opportunity to purchase a modest dry goods store in Arnaudville. The bill of sale was completed for the grand sum of $3,600.00 in 1934. The 30 by 40 foot wooden structure was stocked with the remainder of money borrowed from George’s brother-in-law. Well into the first decade of the twenty first century Sis Coles Benoit recalls the impression of the opening day of the new family business. She recalls,
I was fifteen years old and I remember it like it was yesterday; it was pitiful. Daddy and Mamma could barely afford to buy groceries after making the down payment. You looked around and all you saw were a few canned goods here and there. We sold sugar rice and flour weighed out by the pound. Crackers were counted out and sold by the piece. We made and sold bologna sandwiches. We lived in the back of the store. Mamma made rooms for us by sewing-up and hanging curtains to divide up the space. She’d cook supper for us in the back of the store and when she had to she’d stop and serve customers at the same time. Daddy eventually started going to New Orleans and buying truckloads of furniture. I don’t know how they did it but they sold the few things they had and then bought a little more next time and started all over again.

In 1950, George and Nora’s son J.R. and his wife Genevieve Willis Coles bought the store from his parents. The small grocery grew, as did J. R. and Genevieve’s family, which included Cynthia, J. R. junior Butch, and youngest sister Linda. The name was changed to the new member of the family to run it. Known as J. R. Coles Grocery, the building was remodeled to a forty- foot by sixty-foot structure. They served the people of Arnaudville and the surrounding area for the next thirty-eight years. Because of its location in the downtown area and the many years of family service, the market has become known as part of the heart of Arnaudville itself. Although the name was changed in 1978 to Russell’s, for many, it is still referred to as J.R’s. Ironically, it was J.R rather than Russell, who died tragically at a young age, who saw the unprecedented growth of he and his fathers business as it bore the name of his son-in-law.
In 1978 J. R. retired, selling the grocery to his oldest daughter Cynthia and her husband Russell Robin. No stranger to the grocery, both worked for many years in the small store before purchasing it. Their children Kevin, Melanie, George and Francis beside them, they continued the expansion of the 44-year-old family business. The old wooden structure was torn down to accommodate a larger more modern structure and off street parking.
Russell had worked as a butcher in the small store for many years but also worked in the large supermarket chain stores of Lafayette before returning to Arnaudville and purchasing the store with his wife from his in laws. It is this old Cajun French, boucherie style of meat cutting, seasoning and marinating that he mastered and incorporated into the family business that began the unprecedented growth of the new markets until the present time. Individual attention to every detail of preparation on a large scale is what continues to deliver the quality of products and services offered today.
Cynthia and her children carried on the family tradition despite the seemingly insurmountable loss of the head of the family in 1987. Melanie who was working alongside her father at the time of his death took up the difficult call to chief operate the store into the twenty first century. At a time when the management of a supermarket of this size in this part of the state was a male dominated profession, Melanie helped pioneer a new area of women’s equality and professionalism, shattering previous stereotypes.

The youngest brother, Francis, today joins in the daily operations of the business. Together with a support staff of highly talented and caring men and women, the family continues to focus on customer service and the desire to keep the friendly neighborhood feeling. It is not uncommon to walk in the store and hear people greeted by name and see and hear neighbors visiting down the aisles, some still speaking in Cajun French.
Through the aftermath of the Great Depression, through hurricanes Camille, Audrey, and Andrew, just to name a few, through the boom of the oil industry and the recession that almost crippled this area afterward, this family owned and operated business in the heart of Acadiana has endured and remain committed to Acadiana and the people who call it home.