ROCCO'S STORY
I grew up around good food, thanks to my part-time job in the deli of my grandparents’ small grocery store in the 9th Ward. When you’re from the New Orleans area, that means an instant love affair with the city’s most famous sandwich – the po-boy. Yeah, you right!) There are many stories about where this famous sandwich got its name. But since it’s my place, here’s the way it is. Back in The Depression, bar owners were serving draft beer for a nickel each. And to further entice patrons, they would throw in a sandwich for free. The locals started calling it a ‘poor boy’s lunch’. Eventually, the name got shortened to po-boy and ultimately referred to just the sandwich itself. A po-boy is uniquely New Orleans as it starts with the city’s infamous French bread – crispy on the outside and light and airy on the inside. (They say the secret is in the water). Subs, hoagies – or whatever the heck they call those other sandwiches – are just poor imitations, which leads me to the story of how Rocco’s was born.
When I set out for college in the Fall of ’87, I landed at LSU in Baton Rouge. I couldn’t believe that it was so hard to find a real New Orleans po-boy in a town that was just down the road. So I did what any self-respecting, hard-working po-boy lover from Chalmette would do. I opened my own po-boy shop. (It took almost 10 years of scraping and saving, but in the Spring of ’97 the first Rocco’s New Orleans Po-boys & Café was born near the LSU Campus). After several more locations and awards as “Best Po-boy” from The Morning Advocate, Gambit Weekly, and 225 Magazine my dream has become a reality. Yours in Po-Boys,
Troy “Rocco” Moreau
