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Post Info TOPIC: Marin City Flea Market, Dollars and Cents, The Sizzler, and much more


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RE: Marin City Flea Market, Dollars and Cents, The Sizzler, and much more
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Reply To: Marin City Flea Market, Dollars and Cents, The Sizzler, and much more (archive item)
  
 


Archie Bunker;945 wrote: Well, Rainbow got in major trouble because they were caught selling booze to kids.



The Rainbow Market in 1955, with my dad and, partly visible, Ernie. Presumably before the underage-booze-selling era. Click here to see it on Shorpy.

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Well, Rainbow got in major trouble because they were caught selling booze to kids. And Fred's, actually Fred was a kind, old man. Pretty funny that he carried the most extensive library of x-rated magazines in Marin. Fred shut his doors in 1987 when his wife died. Fred passed soon after.



Hick'ry Pit had the best home made pies in Marin. Their grilled cheese was pretty good, too. Strawberry Joe's was okay, but it couldn't hold a candle to Marin Joe's in Corte Madera. Remember Bud's Ice Cream next to Strawberry Joe's? It was a huge store. I believe it was damaged by fire about 1989 and then shut down.



Anyone remember the Jade Kitchen in the old Paradise Shopping Center? Very good Chinese food. It's sad that the village and the new town center pretty much destroyed the nice Paradise Center. In the '70s it held its own. By the '80s it could no longer compete. I hate the people who built the crappy village shopping center. It really had a negative effect on Corte Madera.

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SteveC wrote:

Responding to several posts, Mt Tam racquet club was called Value World which was like Target with a grocery store inside. I only went to the record department.

Disco was another Target type store that was where the strip center is on E Francisco with a Carpet Store in front (formerly Record Factory) and India Village in back by the yacht harbor.






On my trip today to the Civic Center library's California Room, I checked out some old phone books to, among other things, nail down the Value World story.

The first listing is in the April 1964 directory, and appears only through the 1967 edition. By that time, M.A.C. (Marin Associated Consumers) at 555 Francisco Blvd. in San Rafael had changed their name to "MAC Disco," and, I assume, had abandoned their member-only policy. I wasn't scrupulous in my research (this was a learning experience for me), so I didn't get all the exact dates, but by 1969, what had been Value World was now "Disco Wonderworld." That lasted at least through 1972. Then there's a gap in which the only establishment listed there for a few years is the pharmacy department. There were long periods when the building was vacant. I still have a memory of the place being a White Front or other chain discount place for a bit, but time ran out before I could track that angle down.

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Meadowsweet Rich wrote:

I wonder if the people that run the Lark would be interested in showing 'Impact' some time, I bet a lot of forum users would attend.


 



Apparently they screened it for their grand reopening a couple years back. I didn't get the word and missed it, and nearly committed suicide.

BTW, thanks for coming up with the name "Magnolia Cinema." Deep mind-dredging on my part was to no avail.

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I used to go the Magnolia Cinema quite often around 1970 to watch old films starring The Marx Bros., WC Fields, & others of that genre, we would either hitchike or ride bicycles there & could often sneak in through a side door near the back of the building, they usually ran a double bill as I recall.On another note, I wonder if the people that run the Lark would be interested in showing 'Impact' some time, I bet a lot of forum users would attend.

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Here's another north Magnolia business from the past: The Garden Spot Nursery. Just north of the Masonic Hall. Later the College of Marin took it over for a while. Back in the mid-50s, while attending Marin Catholic, my brother Will worked there part time. That's how he paid for the camera and film for so many of the pictures on my Larkspur web site.

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I can't believe how many people saw "Behind the Green Door" at that place up on the north end of Magnolia. Including me. As historically important as that event was, I have an even stronger memory of attending a whole evening of Warner Brothers cartoons there.

Going way back to the early 50s, there was the "Food Bank." I'm pretty sure it was the building that later became Miller's Market, at the corner of Magnolia and Estelle. Those were the days before affordable home freezers became available, and all you had was a teeny compartment in your refrigerator, just big enough for a couple of ice cube trays, a quart of ice cream and maybe a pack or two of Bird's Eye frozen peas. Plus all the frost that would keep building up on it until it looked like an igloo. As the name implies, the Food Bank operated like a safety deposit box operation for frozen food. If, for example, you made a good buy on a whole lot of meat, you could rent space for it in their big commercial-sized freezers.

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More great shots. I didn't know they mowed down a hill to make Redwood HS.
I did know that the big cavity that is now condos off Meadowsweet Dr. created dirt for
CMC etc though.

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rob miller wrote:

Ah yes, Rainbow Market. Ernie Epidendio ran it. Charlie was the butcher.

 



My father worked there in the 50s. In fact, here he is in 1955. As I say on the page, Fred's Food Center was at that time right next door. Some time in the 60s he moved down near the Lark Theater, in a storefront that had been the Larkspur Post Office before their move to Ward St. in 1956.

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Responding to several posts, Mt Tam racquet club was called Value World which was like Target with a grocery store inside. I only went to the record department.

I don't remember a dance club there and can't find the post. Nor Lee Brothers market but that seems to ring a bell as being a chain that might have included the long gone shopping center in Santa Venetia about a mile past 7-Eleven. Anyone know ?

Disco was another Target type store that was where the strip center is on E Francisco with a Carpet Store in front (formerly Record Factory) and India Village in back by the yacht harbor.

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I thought it was Straw Hat Pizza but we'll figure who's right and since this is so much fun, no one is wrong.

Are you talking about the Mt. Tam physical therapy building on the water next to the Bon Air bridge on Bon Air Rd ?

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Lucas Valley Dairy! What a memory. The milkman's name was Dean De La Montanya!


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Ah yes, Rainbow Market. Ernie Epidendio ran it. Charlie was the butcher. Ernie would sell you a fresh Bordenave french roll for 15 cents,
then Charlie would slice it, and fill it up with salami for a quarter. Good eats! God bless old Ernie. Hope he's happy wherever he is. He put up with all us kids every day. As we got older, Rainbow was the place to score cheap booze. A gallon of Red Mountain vino was
two bucks. Never a problem being under age, as Ernie was half blind, or maybe he just didn't care.
He didn't care too much about keeping the stock on his shelves up to date, either. I remember seeing boxes of soap flakes with names like "Gold Dust" and "Duz", totally covered with dust, right there, front and center, for sale. The "Duz" came with an attactive water tumbler in each box!
Above the produce section, on the wall, he had big posters of happy, dancing vegetables.
If you went out the back door of the market, into the small parking lot, you'd see a big, hand-painted billboard for Lucas Valley Dairy.
They used to deliver milk, butter, and eggs to our front porch milk box 2 or 3 times a week.

Down Magnolia was that other small grocery. I don't remember the proper name of it. We always called it "Fred's", after the old guy who ran it. He always seemed a little bit dour. Can't say I fault him for it either. Imagine being his age, and seeing the grocery biz change
so much. He had the best selection of penny-candy in town!

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RobbyBoy
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Mt. Tam Rachet Club
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Mt. Tam racket Club was first a grocery store, Lee Brothers, right?

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RE: Marin City Flea Market, Dollars and Cents, The Sizzler, and much more
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oh, Rainbow market! The first place i ever shoplifted! And, the stolen goods would go into the pocket of my Catholic school uniform. I have felt guilty for years about the candy that my friends and I took. We also bought some, though. Mr. Young was the butcher there forever. He lived up the street from me.
There was another little market down the street, next to the Lark. They had the original wooden floors, and really old, funky refrigerator units in the wall, with square doors. I think they were original from the 1940's. I can't remember the name of the store. Was it Mr. Epindendio that owned it, or was he at Rainbow?

Cathleen

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Before the Mt. Tam Club was a dance club, wasn't it a department store called Max's? Like the one in The San Rafael canal area by the yacht harbor?

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R54


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How about the Rose Bowl bar across from the Peso and the slot car track ?

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Pinkey's Pizza

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>>Shakey's pizza

Wow, that's a good one. Does anyone remember the pizza place that was in San Rafael, kind of near where Whole Foods and Montecito are now? It had a player piano and a machine that blew soap bubbles from the ceiling down onto a dance floor area. Kind of dark inside. Was that also a Shakey's pizza? I've been trying to remember the name of that one.

And whoever remembered that the Mt Tam Club in Larkspur used to be a dance club is brilliant. I had totally forgotten that.

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Oh yes, Curly's Barber Shop. I still can't drive by there without remembering that's the first place I encountered Playboy Magazine while waiting for my haircut with my Mom.

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Yes, Magnolia Ave on the Kentfield end.... A fine vacant lot with ancient old house before they built the bank. Miller's Market (then Honeycomb in 1974-76), Pinky's Pizza, Jim Corbet's (staid old Mr. Corbet ran off with the young secretary or something...), Curly's barber shop, the Painter's Place, and the bakery with great maple bars. Auto repairs, Black Oak, Chinese Kitchen. Magnolia was only two lanes between Chinese Kitchen and downtown, and there were no apartments on the hill. Wasn't Shakey's next to the Safeway at the Bon Air Bridge? It was all marsh ("Polio Park") and field between Bon Air and Doherty (remember Disco where the sports club is now?). The old house on the knoll on the opposite side of Doherty, all of which was graded down in the early 1970s for the gas station and crappy (except baskin robbins) shopping center. As for the dirty movies, all I recall is the period when they played 'em at the Lark downtown..."I Am Curious, Yellow" was playing there when we moved to the neighborhood in June 1969, quite a shocker to my parents!

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The movie place was on the same side as The Black Oak but toward Corbett's Hardware...I saw "Behind the Green Door"...can't remember the name of the theatre

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OK wow I think I also saw "Behind the Green Door" at some theater on Magnolia!! Where WAS that?! I don't think it was the Black Oak because that was a bar for a long time and I used to hang out there a lot. I think it was across the street but I have no idea where? Too funny!

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Dollars and Sense in Larkspur/Kentfield
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Wasn't Dollars and Sense THE place to buy Halloween costumes in the 70's?

...which reminds me...I've got this memory of Marin Halloweens in the 70's involving "Haunted Houses" in parking lots. It's such a fuzzy memory but I seem to remember there being a special Haunted House that would come to town (almost like a fair or a carnival) and parents would drive the kids there during the day.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

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RE: Marin City Flea Market, Dollars and Cents, The Sizzler, and much more
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I think it was a Pinky's Pizza (not Shakey's) and I recall the pepperoni pizza being extremely salty!!!!! Or am I mistaken?

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Wasn't there an X-rated movie house somewhere near Dollars and Sense and the Black Oak? Or was the Black Oak saloon also an X-rated movie house? For some reason I remember "Behind The Green Door" playing there. And wasn't there a Shakey's Pizza around there too? It's all a blur and it's difficult to imagine an X-rated theater on Magnolia...but I think there was!

Anyone?

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Playing the "Marin remembering game" has become part of my drive home the last couple of nights since I first saw this site and posted on Monday. Here are some other places long gone, but fondly remembered:

--Dollars & Cents. The little shop on Magnolia in Larkspur with an excellent selection of toys and weird kitchy stuff. Stuff was laid out in rows of shelves as if it was a supermarket, and you could just stroll among the aisles. Pretty good candy selection if I recall.

--Black Oak Saloon. Across the street from Dollars & Cents, in the old wooden building. Now it's part of Gilardi's law firm, I think. The Black Oak Saloon was dark inside, with maroon carpet and a cowboy theme (as you might guess from the name).

--The Sizzler. Right along the 101 freeway, south of Corte Madera Creek on the west side. Steak and Malibu Chicken. Yum! Salad bar, those crappy red plastic cups for soda, the wooden handled steak knives, etc. That spot was vacant for about 5 years after it folded. I think it's a mortgage broker building now.

--Village Faire in Sausalito. I think the Alta Mira took it over. It was a tall, 4-5 story vertical shopping center with a winding spiral brick path to the top of the building, with a little fountain at the top and a stream coming all the way down to the street level. Lots of touristy shops, but some good ones too. I seem to remember a nice Christmas themed store(?).

--The Marin City flea market! Oh, how I miss the flea market. Before Best Buy and the shopping center was built, there was that big open dirt lot with junk strewn about. I bought so much crap at that flea market, and it was a fantastic way to spend a Sunday morning. But as an avid Best Buy customer, I do appreciate the upgrade now. :)

--Hickory Pit in Strawberry Shopping Center. I think I went there once, but it had that prime spot right at the entrance, so you couldn't miss it.

--Strawberry Joes in the Strawberry Shopping Center. Yeah!

--Rainbow Market on Magnolia in downtown Larkspur. Fantastic deli. Used to walk there during lunchtime from Redwood.

--Greenbrae school, on Eliseo. I can't believe there are pics of it on this site!


-- Edited by adunne at 05:19, 2007-01-04

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