Standard Market’s big day

JERRY PERSON

When I was growing up in South Central Los Angeles, going to the

market meant walking with your mother to the corner grocery store to

buy a few items for the week and maybe get a piece of penny candy.

Many of you who grew up in the 1930s to the 1950s might remember

being taken as a child by your mother to a much larger grocery store

to shop. These supermarkets were usually located on some busy

thoroughfare away from your home. But still in those

dayssupermarkets, like their smaller neighborhood grocery

counterparts, where still family owned.

Many supermarkets carried the names of the family -- Anderson,

Roth or Sailor -- or they had more fanciful names like Best Buy or

Buy Rite and when these markets opened their doors for the first day

it were be a huge event for the community. It would not be unusual

for hundreds of people to attend the grand opening to see what

bargains these large markets had on their shelves.

Huntington Beach was no exception and, as we know, we never do

anything in a small way including the opening of a supermarket.

Back in 1926 J.W. McIntosh had a small grocery store at 126 Main

St. By 1928 Robert DeBritton occupied this spot with his store and

called it Standard Market. He helped that small grocery store’s grand

opening on Sept. 15, 1928.

By 1931 the grocery outgrew the building and DeBritton proposed

building a new market that would encompass the old store and the lot

next door at 128 Main St.

DeBritton hired O.M. Wallace as contractor for the new store.

James & Cramer would be responsible for the new cement work in the

modern art deco-style building, and Roscoe E. McIntosh oversaw the

electrical work.

Many subcontractors were hired and contributed their talents to

the new store.

By late 1931 the new $50,000 building was just about ready for its

grand opening, and what a grand opening it would be. DeBritton ran

the Standard grocery department. Ray McIntosh would handle the

Standard meat department. McIntosh spent $10,000 for the largest and

finest refrigerators that would handle wholesale and retail dairy

products -- butter, milk, eggs, cheeses as well as fresh fish.

Edgar Dalton’s Standard bakery department would include fresh

breads, pastries, cookies and crackers.

Cleo Loy’s Standard fruit and vegetable department would have the

finest in fruits and vegetables and would include “service with a

smile.” Helping Loy would be Roy DeMars, Earl Grigsby, Elmer Holcolm,

Harold Irwin and Carmel Mansell.

For the small sum of $8,400, Claude Frederick equipped his

34-chair soda fountain and lunch counter. Helping him would be Amy

Maher as a day cook and Mae Bonslog and Bonnie Fox as soda girls.

The big day of the grand opening came on Saturday, Nov. 14, 1931

as Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce President Willis Osborn

welcomed several thousand shoppers to the new store. The famous Apex

Night Club Orchestra played for the shoppers from 3 to 9 p.m. Main

Street was decorated with flags and bunting, and loudspeakers at Main

and Walnut Avenue would announce specials throughout the day.

Two nine-million candle power searchlights played across the dark

sky and could be seen as far away as Catalina Island.

But why did so many people attend this grand opening? For one

thing, many of the food items were being priced at below wholesale

price and second, DeBritton wanted only 1% profit for his groceries.

He felt that “the cheaper we could operate, the cheaper you could buy

groceries.”

So how did they do on that first day?

Well, DeBritton’s grocery department made nearly five thousand

separate sales with tons of groceries being carried out of the store.

Shoppers kept the 14 men behind the meat counter very busy throughout

the opening with more than 3,000 items being sold that day. The meat

items along ran into several tons. Breads, cakes and pies were sold

by the hundreds and in that opening day he sold 3,000 dozen cookies

before 5 p.m. and had to find several more dozen before the store

closed that night.

There were 109 bags of potato chips bought by hungry shoppers that

day. Two tons of bananas went out the store for 25 cents a bunch, 300

dozen bunched vegetables were dispersed to a waiting public.

Eight tons of potatoes were just a part of the $1,100 sales he

made that first day. Frederick’s fountain and lunch counter gave away

more than 2,000 ice cream cones and passed out several hundred

suckers to the children. His turkey dinners ran into the hundreds and

required a flock of turkeys to satisfy a hungry public.

As night descended and closing time neared, he counted 772 sales

on his cash register.

So what were the people buying and for what at the new Standard

Market that day.

Well, you could buy a pound of fresh ground hamburger for a

nickel, a pound of sliced bacon went for 16 cents and loin or rib

pork chops ran 19 cents a pound. Rib, round, T-bone and Swiss steaks

were priced at 9 1/2 cents a pound, S&W; coffee for 29 cents a pound,

Globe A-1 pancake flour 10 pounds for 35 cents, Vienna Sausage for a

nickel, Oleomargarine 3 pounds for a quarter and so the list goes on.

The Standard Market is gone, with only a plaque to mark its place

in history and the supermarkets that I remember are either long gone

or have themselves become small neighborhood grocery stores.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.