TV Actor Finds Second Act as C-Store Owner

Wendell Pierce is opening a chain of convenience and grocery stores, starting in New Orleans.

April 04, 2013

NEW ORLEANS – Convenience store owner might just be Wendell Pierce’s best role yet. The TV actor best known for his work in “Treme” and “The Wire” has launched a chain of convenience and grocery stores in food deserts, NBC News reports.

Pierce and his partners are targeting areas that have little access to fresh food with their Sterling Express convenience stores and Sterling Farms grocery stores. The first stores are opening in New Orleans in areas without a supermarket within a mile radius.

While the city boasts 26 supermarkets as of fall 2012, many of them are in more prosperous areas of New Orleans. “It’s not about overall count,” said Diego Rose, a professor at Tulane University. “It's about distribution. … The areas that came back first were wealthier.”

The actor specifically wanted to have his stores in these kinds of neighborhoods as part of the rebuilding efforts still going on after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. “That's what I hope Sterling Farms is — that neighborhood grocery store where you see your neighbors, where you build that economic engine within your own community and exercise your right of self-determination,” said Pierce.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement