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Wine Store Shuffle in BR Revives Marcello's
Posted by perle0 on 2007-09-21 14:48:20
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[News]
[Baton Rouge] |
| If you think back to the days before Katrina, you may remember Marcello's Wine Market, or maybe even Marcello's Wine Warehouse, which closed down first. Well...they're baa-aack! Or at least, they're on their way. |
Marcello's Wine Market was owned by Gene Todaro, who has another Marcello's located in Lafayette. Its first Baton Rouge location was on Perkins Road, near College; later it moved to the site that will always remain, to those of us of a certain age, Cuban Liquors, just a few blocks down Perkins. And Marcello's Wine Warehouse, which was located on Sherwood Forest, was doing well, and only closed when its excellent manager passed away and Todaro didn't have time to devote to both stores.
Just after Katrina, Jon Smith, at the time owner of Cork & Bottle in New Orleans, bought Marcello's Wine Market from Todaro, who was moving to Austin. It became Cork & Bottle Baton Rouge, while the New Orleans store underwent repair from hurricane damage, and was recently sold to a new owner.
Now Gene Todaro has moved back to Baton Rouge and is set to open Elio Marcello's Wine Warehouse in the old Books-A-Million building on Perkins Road on Oct. 2. He is opening the business with his cousin, Elio, who owns Elio's Wine Market in uptown New Orleans. Todaro says he's got about 200,000 bottles that he'll sell out of the warehouse.
Now he's made a deal with Cork & Bottle owner Jon Smith to buy back the store formerly known as Marcello's, which will become Marcello's once more.
Hey, as long as they still have good wine at good prices, right? Welcome back, Gene. |
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