A Community of Markets Content Block 1

We were competitors, but it was friendly competition in those days. You weren’t undercutting everybody. You worked together as a team. I remember at the bottom of the hill, Union Street, you had Landry’s store. I’d go in there a lot. He had a nice inventory. If we were short some peas or beans to fill out an order one of our customers wanted, I’d go down and pick up a couple of cans of this or that. It was friendly. —Larry Emile Roy, grandson of Roy’s Market founders

The profusion of local markets on street corners and the blocks in between was the thread that connected neighborhoods into the 1950s. Good-natured competition was the rule, with friends and family members operating businesses in proximity to each other. Even families that owned markets patronized others if the location was more convenient or closer to home.