If you’ve lived in New Iberia for your whole life, you might remember a little business on Center Street called Evan’s Grocery Store.

While it’s selection was somewhat limited compared to modern superstores, such as Walmart and Target, what it did offer was friendly service and a place to meet up with one’s neighbors, according to Caleen Lopez, who said she frequently visited the store as a child.

“Everybody knew everybody, and Evan’s was kind of the hub of the neighborhood,” Lopez said.

Lopez said she had fond memories of the store, as well as with the Evanses, saying they were friendly and forgiving of her childhood antics.

Evan’s Grocery Story had a policy where they would pay a nickel a piece for empty soda bottles. Lopez, who said she was about eight years old at the time, found a way to abuse this system by stealing the already-recollected empty soda bottles from behind the store and bringing them to the Evans for profit.

“I did this so often. They had to realize what I was doing but never called me on it,” she said. “That’s how they were. They would have chuckled about it and not done anything about it. Thought it was just so cute.”

Longtime New Iberia resident Edward Granger said he also had pleasant memories of the store.

“You could get everything you needed there. You know, the bread, the milk, a few veggies and canned goods and all that. And it was a nice place to go,” Granger said. “It was just just a very nice neighborhood grocery store that you could go to for a cold drink, or candy bar or whatever with your mom and mom and grandma.”

Granger said his most vivid memory of the store is staring at the children’s toys the Evans sold at the store, and desperately wanting the 64-pack of Crayola crayons.

“And I would just remember standing there, (I was) probably six or seven years old, thinking, ‘God, I wish I could have that box of 64 Crayola crayons,’” he said. “It was like the kid looking through the window in the movies, you know, just wishing.”

According to Granger, the Evans opened up Evan’s poultry next door to the original store after it closed, which sold chickens wholesale.

Lopez said she misses the store, as well as what it represented for New Iberia, specifically the level of trust between fellow New Iberians.

“I was probably six years old when mama would give me money, and I would walk to the corner and get bread or milk or whatever she wanted,” she said. “And you would never do that today.”