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was named Up & Coming Young Chef of Chicago. “I kept saying, ‘I’m not a chef. I’m actually a musician.’ But no one seemed to care,” he grinned. Little brother Juan followed Fredo through a variety of restaurants. “I worked for 15 years as a busboy, but never got higher up the ladder,” Juan admitted. His genius is in marketing. Since graduating from LSU — Juan, it turns out, was the only one who followed his dad’s orders — he has pursued that passion at WDSU-TV. “Rouses Markets is a key partner for us,” Juan said. “I’ve contributed to some really fun campaigns, like the current Feels Like Home campaign, and those are my hands in the crab commercial on the air right now. We do a lot of work at the Rouses Markets store in the Warehouse District, and I love to get lunch from the hot line, but currently, I'm stuck on the finger sandwiches.”

Knowing that many Rouses Markets employees were musicians, Marcy Nathan, the creative director for Rouses Markets and editor of this magazine, assembled Makin’ Groceries, the company’s house band. The entire Rouses Marketing Depart ment worked together to write the band’s first song, “Shopping Rouses Whiskey Wonderland,” with the help of childhood neighbors, drummer Marc Ardoin and pianist Juan Nogueira. Marc starred in the rollicking commercial and music video, alongside other Rouses Markets musicians. Juan, the fifth Beatle, got

kicked out of the band about a week in. “One minute we are laying down the track with composer Donny Markowitz, who has an Oscar for Dirty Dancing . Next thing we knew, it’s five o’clock in the morning and we’re at the Power Boulevard store making a commercial with Jason Villemarette and Fire on the Bayou, and Santa Claus is dancing around in the aisles,” Marc laughed. Chef Fredo returned to New Orleans to work at CureCo. bar and restaurant group, setting the menu for both Cure and Cane & Table. Most recently, Chef Fredo and CureCo. opened Vals on Freret Street, where Fredo is chef/partner. Shortly after the restaurant’s opening to rave reviews, he spotted his old friend Marc sporting a hard hat across Freret Street from Vals.“Hey man, what are you doing?” Fredo called out. “Looks like we’re going to be neighbors again,” Marc smiled. Today, Marc Ardoin is the store director of Rouses Freret Street location. He and Fredo see each other almost every day. “I see him out there mowing the grass, and it’s just like when we were kids. And I run across the street regularly to pick up some special ingredient there. They always have what I need,” Fredo said. The Nogueira brothers talk daily, too, with Juan calling Fredo offering motivational puns designed to pump him up for the day. “What’s the best way to sharpen a chef’s knife?” he’ll ask me. “To grind! Are you ready to grind today?” But for the three childhood buddies, it’s never a grind. Not when you’re doing the work you love alongside lifelong friends like Marc, Fredo and Juan.

38 ROUSES SUMMER 2022