Cajun Meat Market

Owner: Rae Bourgeois

Address: 216 Mystic Blvd., Suite D, Houma

Phone No.: (985) 851-1727

Shop Hours: Monday-Friday, 6 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

Employees: 8

Services: sells fresh cut meats (roast, steaks, ribs and chicken), specialty meats (stuffed chicken, stuffed pork chops, deer, duck, turkey and turducken) and seafood.

Cajun Meat Market: A cut above the rest in meats

By SOPHIA RUFFIN

sophia@tri-parish.com

With the slogan: “You Can’t Go Wrong with Cajun Meats,” Freddie Bourgeois embarked on a journey 20 years ago to serve freshly cut meats to the public, now his daughter Rae Bourgeois has taken the reigns to continue his traditions.

Freddie Bourgeois, a certified public accountant in Houma, and several of his business savvy friends, pooled their funds together and opened the butcher shop – Cajun Meat Market – on Polk Street.

“At the time, he loved the thought of being a business owner,” she said, “and he got together with a group of businessmen from the area and made it happen.”

After a while, Cajun Meat Market had garnered enough business in its Polk Street home for Freddie Bourgeois to move his establishment to a bigger building on South Hollywood Road.

The elder Bourgeois rented the building from former Houma Toyota owner Vince Stassi. The business stayed in that location for nearly 15 years, until Stassi sold the building to its current owners.

Rae Bourgeois said the new owners tore down the building, and Cajun Meat Market was forced to relocate. The Bourgeoises moved the business to Mystic Boulevard.

Cajun Meat Market sells freshly cut meats like ribs, steaks, chicken, ham, turkey and roast. Then, specialty meats like stuffed chicken, stuffed pork chops, turducken and deer.

Selling farm-raised deer meat that has been approved by the Department of Health and the Federal Drug Administration is the newest addition to Bourgeois’ meat selection.

She said she gets her deer meat selection from a farm in New Zealand.

“Deer meat is highly regulated and extremely difficult to get,” she said.

According to Scott Durham, deer program manager with Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fishery, even though its deer season in south Louisiana, selling wild game deer is illegal, only farm-raised deer can be sold commercially.

“Wild game like deer was over hunted years ago, reducing the population,” he said. “The federal government enacted a law that would prevent market hunting, where hunters kill a massive amount of game to make a profit.”

The LWF manager said establishments like the Cajun Meat Market are allowed to process deer for hunters. It has to be done afterhours or in a separate area away from the regular meats.

Sean Boudreaux, a butcher with Cajun Meat Market, debones and processes the meat to make sausage, ground meat, breakfast link sausage and jerky for the customers. Bourgeois said when hunters bring the deer in, it has to clean and quartered, meaning the hunter has removed the head of the deer and skinned it.

The processed deer meat, Durham said, is returned to the hunter to be used to his or her liking.

To help compensate for the fluctuation in the meat market business, Freddie Bourgeois added a catering service to the business several years ago

“The meat market business is tough,” Rae Bourgeois said. “Not many people think to buy their everyday meats from a meat market. They buy from the big franchises like Wal-mart, Rouses and Sam’s where they do most of their grocery shopping.”

“It’s hard to compete with them. So if we want to stay in business, we have to offer something else to entice our customers.”

She said the catering business really expanded their market value. “We cater where we drop the food off or we can stay and serve,” she said. “It really doesn’t matter. We do a lot of crawfish boils, weddings and family events. You name it and we can probably cater it.”

As time passed, the family also started to have a lunch and a breakfast deli, attracting the workforce business that needed to grab a bite to eat while heading to work, or wants to take a break during lunchtime.

Even with the added ventures, Rae Bourgeois still looks for new ideas to bring into the business. She knows that it’s a business that changes from day-to-day.

“We’ve been in business for a long time and we have a great reputation in this area,” Rae Bourgeois said. “We have quality meats, and at the end of the day, everybody has to eat.”

By 2005, Freddie Bourgeois’ career as a CPA began to demand more of his time. He opted to sell the business, and his daughter persuaded him to sell it to her.

“The opportunity to work for myself was very tempting,” Rae Bourgeois said.

At the time, she was a manager for one of the Copelands of New Orleans franchises.

Taking ownership of the business was an easy step for Rae; she practically grew up the Cajun Meat Market.

“As a teenager, I spent many Christmases vacuum packing meats and making gift baskets,” she said. “I learned how to cut meats working with Copelands. So owning a meat market was a natural fit.”