Sometime in mid-1939, this Thrifty Drug Store opened at 4th and Spring Streets in downtown LA with lots of bunting and streamers. There are several signs saying “LUNCH” so I’m guessing there was a lunch counter inside they were keen to promote. I can also see a poster for Snow White Chocolates featuring the Disney version, whose movie had come out a year and a half before, which shows its staying power. I particularly like that guy out front in the white hat and holding a carry bag. I wonder where he was going that day and if he stopped in at the Thrifty for lunch.
John A. says: “Right in front of the fire hydrant appears to be a “newsstand ” of some type. Looks like a rock holding the papers in place. I wonder if the man near the ladder is selling the papers? Next to the traffic signal is a folding seat, probably for the news vendor. Additional newspapers are held down by a rock, next to the folding seat. Just to the left of the Thrifty sign, it does say “Complete food and beverage service.””
This is how that same corner looks today:
Featuring the Disney version as opposed to???
Well, there are tons of other examples, but I was thinking more of it being a marketing/merchandising thing for a movie that was 18 months old at the time.
Indeed it did. On the left side of the building it says “Complete Food & Counter Service”. There was a time when most drug or dime stores had a lunch counter or soda fountain. I guess fast food drive-thrus put an end to that. Even as late as the sixties and early seventies I often ate at the lunch counter at W. T. Grant’s in Culver City. They had great hot dogs with unusual buns.
I remember the lunch counter in a store across the street from Grant’s (if we’re talking about Culver Center), but I don’t remember Grant’s lunch counter. I do remember a pet section on the downstairs (remember those wooden stairs and balusters?) level.
The Woolworth’s lunch counter on Hollywood Blvd. lasted well into the ’80s! Or was it J.J. Newberry’s lunch counter? They were next to each other around the 6000 block.
Yeah, I think it was Newberry’s that I was thinking about that had a lunch counter (in Culver Center) across from Grant’s. I don’t remember it being there much later than the 60s though.
Oh, and I noticed that guy, too. Especially his exceptionally baggy pants!