A Gala Premiere - Studio City 1963

Here is the Grand Opening ad for the Studio City Market Basket store featured in the previous post. This ad appeared in the Pasadena Star-News on January 16, 1963. One of the interesting aspects of "Grand Opening" ads from these years is that they often featured photos or line drawings of the actual store in question. The line drawing in this case is a fairly accurate representation.

Market Basket Mayhem!!

Highly recommended viewing for fans of old supermarkets is the 1964 Jerry Lewis film “The Disorderly Orderly”. This film features le Jerry in typical fine form, wreaking havoc as he earnestly performs the duties of an entry-level job, this particular one being an orderly in a sanitarium. Our family digs this film, even though my wife is only 1/8th French!

The climactic scene features Jerry and company laying waste to the nearly-new Studio City, California Market Basket store, which was located at 11315 Ventura Boulevard. Not only is it funny, but it offers a rare, up-close look (especially when viewed in slow-motion) at a classic SoCal grocery store in the prime of its life. When you see this you’ll gasp, you’ll marvel, you’ll think “Man, they were running a heck of a promotion on Hi-C that day!”

A little background – the Market Basket chain of Southern California (not to be confused with the unaffiliated Texas and New England chains bearing the same name) was founded with a single store in Pasadena in 1930. By 1963, the year the Studio City store was opened, the company had 56 stores throughout L.A. and the surrounding regions. In October of that year the chain was acquired by Kroger, providing them a beachhead (no pun intended) in the vital Southern California market. Prior to this time, Kroger had no stores west of Kansas.

The Market Baskets’ most distinctive features, to be sure, were the gigantic “basket-weaved” signs that towered above each store. Even in an era when many L.A. thoroughfares boasted great, often outrageous signage, these babies really must have stood out.

A few more notes - the building still exists, although it is no longer a grocery store. Secondly, if you watch the film carefully, you can spot a “Cinnamon Cinder” nightclub near the Market Basket. There were several of these non-alcoholic clubs in the SoCal area in the early 60’s, and many now classic rock and roll acts played there. They were owned by legendary concert promoter and Newlywed Game host Bob Eubanks.