You’ve got to love a grocery store with a pun in its name. This place was called the Sunset Cashis King Market – Cash Is King, get it? This place opened in the summer of 1933 at 6000 Sunset Blvd on the southwest corner of Gordon St, which put it right next to Columbia studios. Back then, and for decades later, cash really was king (the first credit card, Diners Club, didn’t start until 1950.) And with those two large signs advertising free parking, Cashis King would have been an early adopter of appealing to what was referred to as “the carriage trade” – i.e. shoppers with their own cars.
1933 ad for Cashis King Market, 6000 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles
Greg H. says: “So much of the music of my life was recorded in that building. As United Western & Ocean Way studios, a good part of the Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” & “Smile” was recorded there, as well as Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night”, Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You”, the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin”, and the Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live For Today”. The list goes on and on with Blondie, Elvis Presley, Bobby Vee, the 5th Dimension, the Righteous Brothers, Barbra Streisand, Petula Clark, Ella Fitzgerald, Whitney Houston, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Tom Petty, R.E.M., k.d. lang, Madonna, Rod Stewart, Glen Campbell, Eric Clapton, and Bonnie Raitt all having recorded there. Hard to believe the building started as a grocery store.”
This is what 6000 Sunset Blvd looked like in June 2022. That site is now home to EastWest recording studios.
Love the ad!
Note the two palm trees with 88 years of growth. The round things above the food bins inside the store are the food scales where one would weigh the produce to pay by the pound. And, the ubiquitous scale to weigh yourself on sits on the sidewalk (under the 6000 address numbers); here you pay to weigh and with many of them get a little ticket with your weight and your fortune printed on it – an incentive to part with your coins.
I can remember seeing both of those when I was a kid.
Once again the new vs old photo where the new look is crap compared to the older market view. Why doesn’t anything stay the same!!!!
In this case, it’s because it isn’t a market anymore, it’s a sound studio.
There may not have been credit cards, but if you were a regular customer, lots of places would let you run a tab. Convenient if you’re sending the kids to pick something up for you, and you don’t want them carrying money.
Wow! What a life that building has had.
Regarding credit back in the day, there were lay-away plans.
Part of the history (circa 1940’s) is found under Martin’s entry for Madame Zucca’s Hollywood Casino here: https://martinturnbull.com/hollywood-places/places-l-to-p/