Coutee's Grocery, the business behind Acadiana's famous "Sauce Pack," is closing after the recent death of its owners.
"We gonna take a trip down east with ya. Down to Eunice, Louisiana. Yeah, Coutee's," Zydeco artist Rusty Metoyer sings on his recording of "Going to Coutee."
The song plays on Paige Coutee's phone, daughter of the store's late owner, Joshep "Joe" Coutee, inside the blue-green building at 610 S. Martin L. King Drive in Eunice.
She briefly sings along to the song while reminiscing about her father, who died just before Father's Day.
Joe Coutee's grandfather opened Coutee's in Oakdale in 1947 before relocating to Eunice in 1955 to the exact spot where the store stands today. Paige Coutee said it is a mystery when exactly her father took over. Like many family-owned businesses, Joe Coutee began working at the store at a young age.
"Even before he could write at 5 years old, he was sitting on the counter and putting groceries in the bag," Paige said.
Joe Coutee worked at the store until his death in June at 81 years old, Paige Coutee said. Joe Coutee also worked as a bus driver for the St. Landry Parish school system for 30 years. She said he made himself a pillar of the community during his time.
Paige Coutee said she viewed her father as a private and stoic man, but during his recent funeral, stories about him showed how much he helped his community.
"This one young man told me that my dad bought him a game for Christmas because he didn't have anything. As for here, he helped a lot of families whether they didn't have money or anything to eat. You don't refuse people that need food," Paige Coutee said.
Paige Coutee said her father's dedication to his community has made closing the store difficult. However, the store never made that much money, especially when major chains like Walmart and Dollar Tree opened up around Eunice.
"People are very upset that we are having to close the store but nobody was coming. When dollar stores started popping up, it shut us down," Paige Coutee said.
Coutee herself grew up inside the store and worked at the business well into her 50s. She said her favorite memories are a culmination of all the interesting, funny and downright strange people she has met while working at the store, whether it was the store's faithful lifetime customers, visitors from other states or Louisiana musicians and artists.
She said the store's claim to fame is its sauce packs.
People would come from all over Louisiana, Texas and the United States to get a hold of Coutee's cult-classic sauce packs. The packs are a blend of sausage and Creole seasoning used to create sauce piquante.
Joe Coutee created the packs in the early 1990s, Paige Coutee said. Since then, many have tried to imitate them, but her father's has always remained at the top. The pack garnered enough of a following even to have a Zydeco song written about them, which is a surefire way to stay in the Cajun/Creole lexicon for ages to come.
The store stood for so much more than a simple grocery store, Paige Coutee said. It functioned as a gathering spot for the community and a way to catch up with friends and family. She witnessed generation after generation come through its doors, which makes closing them ever more painful.
"My whole life, our whole life is here." Paige Coutee said. "This is family. You can say this isn't even a business. We didn't really even really sell much. This is the one place that (people) stopped because it never changes. This is the one thing that remained constant in their lives as well as ours."
The store is expected to close in the next couple of weeks, Paige Coutee said.