None of the Sterling Farms stores will serve Pontchartrain Park. (The two partners and a third, James Hatchett, lost the bid to redevelop the commercial strip where Schwegmann’s once sat.) Instead, the first full-service grocery store will open in a former Winn-Dixie in Marrero, La., a suburb across the Mississippi where 26 percent of households have an income of less than $25,000 annually, and 55 percent earn less than $50,000.
How will Sterling Farms make it in neighborhoods where other grocery stores fear to tread?
The depressed city’s low real estate costs will help, Mr. Henry said. In the Marrero store, instead of a fixed monthly rent, the company will pay 2 percent of sales that exceed $9 million annually, allowing it to build the business.
Sterling Farms will look like most other conventional grocers, with a deli, bakery, seafood counter and as many as 40,000 items. But it also will cater to the special needs of low-income shoppers. The store will offer a free shuttle to anyone who spends $50 or more, so they need not walk or take the bus with heavy bags. Each month, the store plans a cookout (which in New Orleans usually means a crayfish boil) to raise money for the community.
Still, no one, least of all Mr. Pierce, expects such an ambitious project to go entirely smoothly. Years of working on “The Wire” and “Treme,” shows that spotlight systemic failure and bureaucratic incompetence, have taught him to be wary of relying on public money and timetables. “It’s life imitating art, and art imitating life,” Mr. Pierce said. “The shows influence me, and the work I do influences the shows.”
Mr. Pierce is convinced that to preserve its food culture, New Orleans needs good grocery stores as much as restaurants. “When I think of Sterling Farms, I remember those Friday nights with my mother,” he said. “That communal thing of actually going to get the fresh food that you are going to cook and eat together. That’s a memory. As corny as it sounds, it feeds the soul as much as the body.”
A version of this article appeared in print on March 7, 2012, on page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: In New Orleans, an Actor Turns Grocer.
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