“It’s not your grandma’s grocery store,” Joey Medina, regional vice president for Winn Dixie, said of the new Covington store to open at 6 a.m. this morning on Louisiana Highway 21.

The 55,000 square foot store is the second in Covington and the seventh to open in St. Tammany Parish. It’s opening marks the 36 store in the New Orleans market.

Medina said the location for the new store was chosen to fill a gap in both Winn Dixie’s market as well as to fill a need for a grocery in that area.

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However, a trip to this store reveals this is more than a place to pick up bread and milk.

An emphasis is given to providing fresh, local food when possible, and an example of this comes in the farmers’ market type produce section, which has the fresh produce located in bins inside and outside the store. The door is actually a 24-foot long bay that opens up with an air curtain serving as the only separation between the outside and the inside produce area.

Medina said Winn Dixie uses local produce as much as possible when it is in season.

“Local and fresh is our focus,” he said.

This store has the usual grocery aisle, and it even has a cosmetics department with lighted shelving, a pharmacy, a florist and an expanded organic foods section.

But, what makes it special is the other extras it offers – a salad bar, an olive bar, a barbecue station and a meat carving station.

The prepared foods area also serves up traditional hot foods as well as poboys and panini and has areas set up just for New Orleans style entrees and gourmet foods.

The store boasts a high-end bakery, a full service deli, a cut fruit bar and a snack mix bar. The seafood department has a 16-foot iced display case, a live lobster tank and sushi case with a sushi chef on duty. When in season, it will have fresh boiled seafood.

“It will look and feel like a seafood market,” Medina said.

It even has its own peanut butter machine.

Emphasizing its dedication to local products, the store has its own Louisiana products section, complete with a large selection of Abita Beer and Heiner Brau.

With all of the things included in this new store, Medina said what he is most proud of is its Green Chill certification from the Environmental Protection Agency.

This supermarket is the first in Louisiana to achieve this certification and only the 26th in the country.

The store is equipped with a full-store backup generator so the store can remain open following major storms.

The store will boast a more than $2 million annual payroll and more than 200 local residents were employed through its opening.