8 Things Brookshire’s Deli Workers Wish Louisiana Shoppers Knew
Think you know your way around Brookshire’s deli after years of Friday night fried chicken runs?
Many Louisiana shoppers who always order the same way are missing out on deals and shortcuts.
Here’s what Brookshire’s deli workers wish Louisiana shoppers knew.
1. Deli Meat Cut to Your Order
Brookshire’s slices its ham, turkey and cheese fresh at the service counter instead of pulling pre-cut packages off a shelf.
A shopper who never asks just gets the counter’s default thickness.
That’s a habit worth breaking.
Ask for a half-pound of Black Forest ham sliced thin for sandwiches, or a thick cut of hickory pit ham for a plate, and the person behind the counter builds it to that order, priced by the weight that comes off the scale.
Brookshire’s deli workers wish more shoppers spoke up instead of pointing at the case and hoping for the best.
2. Five-Dollar Meals Rotate Daily
Brookshire’s runs a different $5 meal at the deli every day of the week, made fresh in-store.
Sunday brings homestyle meatloaf with a choice of two sides, and Brookshire’s swaps in chicken-fried steak by Wednesday.
Miss a day, miss out.
Monday’s Frito pie comes with cornbread, Tuesday hands over Korean barbecue (BBQ) chicken with rice and an eggroll, Thursday plates a loaded mashed potato bowl with a roll, Friday serves chicken Alfredo tortellini, and Saturday closes the week with a chili cheese dog and chips.
A side swap isn’t automatically off the table, either.
One Louisiana shopper traded the standard popcorn chicken side for the spicy version and paid an extra quarter for it, straight from asking the person behind the counter.
3. Custom Party Platters Take a Day’s Notice
Brookshire’s asks for at least 24 hours’ notice on a made-to-order catering platter from the deli counter, and that order has to happen in person, not through the app.
Custom trays only.
A shopper planning a charcuterie board or a shrimp platter for a Saturday tailgate needs to place that order by Friday afternoon at the latest, walking up to the counter directly instead of checking out online.
The grab-and-go case skips all of that.
A Wilmot Farms tray or a plain fruit tray sits ready in that same case, priced and stocked like any other grocery item, available same-day through pickup or delivery with no counter trip required.
4. Fried Chicken Prices Two Ways
Brookshire’s prices its fried chicken two different ways, and a shopper who orders out of habit can get caught off guard by which one applies.
Order individual pieces and a breast rings up at $3.49, while a thigh, drum or wing runs $1.99 each.
Tenders work differently.
Ask for tenders instead, and Brookshire’s weighs them out at $9.99 a pound before whatever sale price applies that week.
Brookshire’s deli workers wish shoppers asked which pricing method applies before the register rings up the order, since a mixed box of pieces and a pound of tenders rarely cost the same for the same amount of chicken.
The Math Behind Brookshire’s Fried Chicken
Brookshire’s charges by the piece for individual fried chicken, and that price adds up fast on a mixed order.
Two breasts, two thighs, two drums and two wings priced individually come to about $18.92 before tax, using the counter’s current per-piece prices.
A pound of tenders at the regular $9.99 rate is a different cut and a different weight, so the cheaper route depends on which pieces a shopper needs and how many people are eating.
5. Boudin Skips the Hot Case
Brookshire’s fried chicken counter is the store’s main staffed food counter, so a Cajun-food question often lands there first, even when the answer sits somewhere else entirely.
Ask that worker for boudin, the Cajun rice-and-pork sausage, and the worker redirects the question before finishing it.
Wrong counter, right store.
Brookshire’s stocks boudin packaged and chilled in the meat department’s sausage case instead, sold under names like H&H’s Boudin, shelved the same way as smoked sausage and other links.
The person with the tongs points a shopper a few aisles over, not toward anything under the heat lamp.
Psst! How much do you know about Brookshire’s? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Brookshire’s Grocery IQ
Answer these questions on Brookshire’s history across Louisiana and Texas. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Brookshire Grocery Company bought the naming rights to which Louisiana venue back in 2020?
6. Family Meals Sit Next to the $5 Case
Brookshire's deli sells family-size prepared meals in the same case as the daily $5 special, priced by the pound instead of a flat rate.
A family chicken-fried steak runs about $11.99 for roughly a pound and a half, and a family spaghetti and meatballs comes in around $15.73 for closer to two pounds.
No sign points them out.
A shopper who only knows the rotating $5 meal drives past both trays without a second look, since they sit unlabeled in that same cold case.
One $16 tray of spaghetti and meatballs can cover more plates than three separate $5 boxes, for less total cash.
7. Fresh-Sliced Beats the Sealed Bag
Brookshire's grab-and-go deli meat comes pre-packaged with the price sticker sealed straight across the resealable zipper, and that's not a packing mistake.
A Brookshire's deli worker confirmed as much on a Shreveport community forum: Corporate requires the sticker on every bag of pre-sliced meat and cheese, no exceptions.
The zipper doesn't survive it.
Asking the counter to slice the same meat fresh instead skips the ruined bag entirely.
It can come with a second perk, too: At least one Louisiana shopper found a weekly ham discount, down from $9.99 to $5.49 a pound, applied only to meat cut to order, not to the packaged version already sitting in the case.
8. One Crew Runs Deli and Bakery
Brookshire's deli counter and the bakery case share the same crew at many stores, not two separate teams.
Deli associates who post about the job on Indeed describe covering both departments, frying chicken one minute and finishing a birthday cake order the next.
One team, two counters.
A holiday rush or a Friday night crowd hits both sides at once, which is why a wait at the deli can trace back to a cake order happening in the same kitchen.
Brookshire's deli workers wish shoppers knew a slow counter usually means the same hands are busy two departments over, not that nobody's working.
Senior Discount Has a Catch
Brookshire's gives shoppers 60 and older 5% off their total on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as long as they show ID at checkout.
The discount skips tobacco, alcohol, gift cards, money services, postage stamps, lottery tickets, event tickets, bill pay and charitable donations everywhere the chain operates.
Louisiana adds one more.
Brookshire's excludes dairy products from the senior discount at its Louisiana stores, a carve-out that doesn't work the same way in Texas.
A Louisiana shopper filling a cart with milk, eggs and cheese on a Tuesday morning won't see that 5% applied to that part of the total.
Newer Louisiana Stores Come Loaded
Brookshire's newest Louisiana store opened in Shreveport in 2023, and it looks nothing like the classic neighborhood grocery.
The 56,000-square-foot building added a CC's Coffee Bar, a Louisiana coffee chain, plus a sushi counter and a Pizza Hut Express counter alongside the usual aisles, at the corner of Norris Ferry Road and the Southern Loop.
A different kind of trip.
Brookshire Grocery Company, which runs more than 200 stores across its four-state footprint, built the Shreveport store as a "new generation" format, the same kind it had just opened months earlier in Bossier City.
It isn't the same thing as FRESH by Brookshire's.
That upscale banner still runs just three stores, and all three sit in Texas: Tyler, Fate and Longview, with none in Louisiana.
A Louisiana shopper who hasn't visited in a while may still walk into a store selling espresso and sushi rolls next to the same deli counter their parents used decades ago, even without the FRESH name over the door.
