Before Best Stop came on the scene in 1986, boudin wasn’t necessarily the kind of thing you’d go on a road trip for.
Boudin, the local sausage that has come to define Cajun cuisine alongside gumbo, rice and gravy and jambalaya, is essentially a merging of sausage traditions from French, Acadian, Creole and German sources. The casing is stuffed with the chef’s preferred ratio of meat to rice, generously seasoned with a Cajun blend of spices and aromatics.
It’s a country food, created from south Louisiana’s affinity for rice and hog meat. As such, it was something you’d process at home as part of a boucherie, or grab from the local meat counter for a hearty lunch. And until interstate travel came along, it stayed highly local to southwest Louisiana.
That all changed when Robert Cormier and his cousin, Lawrence “Brud” Menard, decided to open the Best Stop Supermarket in Scott 40 years ago, just a mile off of Interstate 10 at exit 97. Now dubbed the “Boudin Capitol of the World” thanks to a 2012 declaration by the Louisiana Legislature, Scott is a hub for local producers and boudin shops, and hosts the Scott Boudin Festival each spring.
Shelves of ready-to-cook packaged meats are pictured Thursday, September 10, 2026, at The Best Stop Supermarket in Scott, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
The area’s proximity to a major travel corridor has helped boudin’s fame spread far and wide — to Texas, among workers from Louisiana who stock up on the drive home, and to the rest of the world via tourists who want to experience boudin for themselves.
“If I-10 ever moved, we’d move,” said Robert Cormier, who hit a sweet spot in the Cajun food market — something that locals love, and people will travel to get for themselves.
“When we started, we were making our boudin right here in the front of the store, and customers would come in from Port Arthur and all these Texas places,” he said. “We were making about 150 pounds a week, and when I asked customers if they’d be coming back, they’d say, ‘Oh yeah. We can’t find anything like this in Texas.’ That’s when I said, ‘we have something here.’”
Now retired with his wife, Brunella, Cormier’s children Dana Cormier, Penny Gennuso and Damon Cormier are busy steering the business into the future. In 2020, they opened a USDA-approved production facility to be able to sell products to franchisees, and have items for sale at around 600 market locations across the Gulf South and nationally.
Robert and Brunella Cormier are pictured with their children Damon Cormier, from left, Penny Gennuso and Dana Cormier Thursday, September 10, 2026, at their familyÕs business, The Best Stop Supermarket, in Scott, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
There are currently five Best Stop franchise locations, in Broussard, Baytown, Carencro, Katy and Toledo Bend, and the company has also begun expanding with a “Cajun Express” c-store model, alongside 150 to 200 packages that they ship out weekly to customers.
“A couple of weeks ago, all the boudin products we were making in the plant came out to 74,000 pounds in one week,” said Dana Cormier. “It’s probably over 2 million pounds a year.”
The Best Stop Supermarket headquarters stays busy, except for the two or three times there’s been a wreck and the interstate shut down, according to Dana Cormier. Customers flow in daily to purchase regular or smoked boudin, cracklins, boudin balls, jerky, andouille, tasso, a wide assortment of Cajun meats and spices — and maybe a souvenir or two.
More expansion is planned for the future, said Penny Gennuso, who worked in education before joining the family business to help manage growth. “We’ll be doubling the size of the plant and should be in operation with that by January 1,” she said. “We’re going to potentially have some new items come out of that as well.”
Best Stop’s boudin was developed by Lawrence Menard, who worked as a butcher, and family friend Mrs. Jerry Hovatta early on in the business — and the recipe has stayed the same ever since, according to the Cormiers.
Fresh cooked boudin is pictured Thursday, September 10, 2026, at The Best Stop Supermarket in Scott, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
“I think it’s the meat to rice ratio that makes it special,” said Dana Cormier. “We have a lot more meat, and it just has a taste that’s like no other taste. It’s doesn’t have a whole lot of black pepper in it. It doesn’t have a whole lot of red pepper. It’s a mix that leaves you wanting to come back, that’s just a little spicy and still gives that good flavor.”
Said Robert Cormier: “I had a saying all these years: ‘you can always try to fool people, but you can’t fool their taste buds. When they take a bite and say, ‘Oh, this is good,’ then you have something special.”
Even as boudin competition has exploded in recent years, the distinctive stories and flavors in each link keep all of the producers in the area busy, said Damon Cormier. When it comes to Louisiana boudin, there’s always enough to go around.
“It’s like the more competition that comes here, the busier we get,” he said. “It’s like a car dealership. Customers all come to the same place, but they might like something different and check out a different dealership.
“Even if people like something better over there than here, or if we don’t have something they want, it just brings more people to this area for this product. If they want Cajun meats, they think about Scott.”
Best Stop Supermarket will host a public event celebrating 40 years in business on Nov. 1, at their Scott headquarters located at 615 Hwy. 93 North.
