Larwin Plaza Shopping Center
Vallejo, California - circa 1960s(?)
Here's a picturesque little scene outside the Kresge and Sears stores at the old Larwin Plaza, which is now called Vallejo Plaza Shopping Center, as far as I can tell. Found no official website for the place, nor any information re: the year it originally opened (under the Larwin Plaza name), but I believe the name was changed to Vallejo Plaza around 1981, according to the Retail Traffic article I cite below.
At any rate, it's a pretty nifty shot, that much I do know for sure!
Mall history: n/a
Current website: n/a
Current aerial view
Resource articles: 1, 2
Previous entries: none
posted by Keith @ 8/25/2006
31 Comments:
A little bit of irony in seeing these two adjacent to each other. Kresge (now KMart) and Sears merged almost 2 years ago, but it is my opinion that both of these retail pioneers are in dire straits thanks to Wal-Mart, world economy and consumers fickle buying trends. If they both survive another 5 years, it will be a miracle. The Sears signage reminds me of the old Sears Town in Ft. Lauderdale right off Sunrise Blvd. As always, thanks for all the great photos, Keith.
Well Keith you did it...
You scared me to death that I actually missed a mall in my home territory. In fact, I never knew about this shopping center. Vallejo has never been, uh, a strong 'draw.'
Anyway, fascinating to learn about it. Looks like they tore half of it down to build some apartments. That's too bad. I was ready to go check it out tomorrow.
Thanks Keith!
Scott
Just my thoughts too when I saw this pic. How ironic that you see Sears and Kresge / K-mart together in one picture like this.
I too, would hate to see both chains ascend to that big mall in the clouds, but if this whole 'Sears Grand' thing goes off well enough, we could very well see the K-mart name nixed in favor of "Sears Grand" which it seems Sears Holdings Corp is trying to push to become the off-mall banner for the company, shedding of their K-mart roots (Keep in mind it's K-mart who bought out Sears. I, and others, make the mistake often of saying Sears bought out K-mart).
It's too soon to tell yet, but it's a possibility.
Looking at the aerial view, it looks as if the Sears building is still there being divided. If it is the Sears building, what a small Sears store, unless it has(d) a basement like most older Sears.
Sears is gone. My guess is they moved to nearby Hilltop Mall in Richmond.
Scott
The Vallejo Sears left many years before Hilltop got theirs. More likely is that Solano Mall in Fairfield was the culprit. But the Larwin Plaza store was indeed a small one and after it was closed was replaced by a discount grocery store along the lines of Food 4 Less.
As for the Kresge store, what was most amazing to me is that it continued to operate for many years even though there was a full size KMART just a couple of blocks away on Sonoma Blvd. I don't remember how long this went on, but it was at least through the late 70's.
I also remember going into that Kresge once and hearing recorded announcements for Kmart mixed in on the Muzak. By this time, I'm guessing it was a Kresge "in name only" and that everyone who shopped and worked there considered it another KMart, albeit a small one.
The only other Kresge I recall in the Bay Area was at Foothill Square in Oakland right off 580 near the San Leandro Line. This was an outdoor mall anchored by Kresge, Lucky, Thrifty, and a large clothier along the lines of Roos Atkins or Grodins.
Alas, it's pretty much empty now and is about to be demolished and redeveloped. Mallrat, you should check it out before it happens.
We had a Larwin Plaza in Simi Valley, CA growing up. It had a movie theater, Builders Emporium, Thrifty's Drug Store, and a grocery store that I cannot remember the name of. They enclosed part of it in the early 1980s, and then renamed it later to Mountaingate Plaza.
This pic. brings back alot of good memories for me. I went there as a kid with the folks and when I was old enough (13 or 14) my sisters and I would take the bus there and spend the day window shopping. We would eat at the kresges counter when you could get a burger,frys and chocolate shake for 50 cents.That was around 72/73.The Sears store closed in 86 and after that the rest of the malls original/familier stores soon begain to disappear.
That store had a talking parrot that if I remember correctly wasn't always caged. Thrifty ice cream for a nickle, grilled cheese at Kresges and a quick stop at Sears for your toughskins. Larwin Plaza had everything a late 60s 7 year old needed
Does anyone remember where the Savon Cleaners was located in this shopping center?
The K-Mart has been torn down - and that property looks vacant now.
in about 1980, there was a Larwin Plaza Sewing Center at the mall. Does anyone know where it was located and if there are any old employees to contact for histroical information. it was also called the Singer Companies as well.
I remember Larwin Plaza very very well. A lot of you got the dates mixed up. Sears there stayed open for quite some time even after the Sears at Solano Mall had opened. Along with Kresge you had Consumers Catalog Store, Thrifty's Dept Store, Kinney Shoes and a few more stores.
Sears hung out for a while even after they remodled part of the shopping center and SHOWBIZ moved in.
The sad part was they had originally planed to build the Solano Mall in Vallejo but stupid Vallejo and their red tape laws forced the investors into looking elsewere and it landed in Fairfield
The bird at Kresge was called Charlie, and it was a mynah bird, not a parrot. It did talk, though. In looking up info on the Kresge chain, apparently it was a tradition in some of their stores to have mynah birds named Charlie. I don't think he was for sale. He stood guard over the pet section, which sold hamsters and fish. It was in the back corner of the store, up from the lunch counter. I also remember the "Consumer's Distributing" catalog store that opened in the '70s. You'd place an order out of a catalog in the store and it came down a conveyor belt. The mall also had Eucaplytus Records in the '70s. The Sears was very small but it had the same things other Sears did, including a candy counter.
The name of the "Catalog Store". was Age A E ( not spelled right sorry ). My mother worked there for years. You could pay for stuff out of the catalog book with "Blue Chip Stamps". I'm not sure but I think it was located inside Thrifty's. Had like it's own counter. Not positive, I was very young then. Also, Sears actually hung around there until about 1998 ish. There was only a little like room with two workers & all they did was like if your weed eater broke & was under warranty you could take it there for them to fix. My cousin worked there until they closed it.
This brings back many memories. I worked at the Kresge Store from 1977 through 1980. the Kmart was across the street from Larwin Plaza. They kept it open until the lease ran out some time shortly after I left the store.
AG&E was never in the Larwin Plaza shopping center, but was located at what was then where Highway's 29 and 37 crossed until it closed.
I lived in Vallejo as a kid in the early '60's, my parents bought my school clothes at this Sears store every year.
I remember this shopping center as a kid, it was off Sears Point Rd.
It was located on Sonoma Blvd. The blue chip stamp store was located on Springs Road, as was Smiling Sam's drugstore.
Hi Keith, Do you happen to have any pictures of the Savon Cleaners at 60 Larwin Plaza?
Does anyone remembers the name of the fish and chips restaurant that was located in Larwin Plaza ?
Ah, memories. I lived on Bret Harte Way in Vallejo from 1963 (6 weeks old) until age 5 (1968). My dad was manager of the Purity Grocery Store, which, IIRC, was on Springs Road. Larwin Plaza was my first shopping center experience. I loved to go to Kresge's to see the black bird who talked (Charlie?).
We also shopped at Sears. My mom said when I was around two, I ducked and crawled out of the dressing room while she was trying on clothes. By the time she got her clothes back on, I was almost to the other end of the store.
AG&E was similar to Costco in that you needed to become a member. Even after moving to Petaluma in Fall '68, we'd still go to Vallejo to shop at AG&E. Mom bought me my first cassette tape recorder and cassette tapes there in '70 or '71.
That's right. It was a membership store. Our family had a card and you could only get 2 people in at a time. So my brother would walk in with another brother, the he would walk around and walk in with another sibling, and so on till all 6 of us were in.
Yes, it was Tie's In Fish and chips. My mom worked there and dated Ray Tie (even though they were both married at the time. My dad was an alcoholic, and she would have divorced him, but he got sent to Viet Nam.)
Not much to see. We actually went by there over the weekend and I walked to the center of the complex where kresage once stood. The ridgeway camera and the maternity wear shop store fronts are gone. Factory to u and dollar store are vacant store fronts. It doesn’t appear they are trying to lease them as there were no signs in the windows. They are probably waiting for the leases to expire then gonna bulldoze the complex.
The sears building now houses seafood city. After sears closed it became better buy foods in the early 90s.
Maybe you can answer my question. What happened to all of the little stores across from kresage? There was ridgeway camera and motherhood maternity wear just to name a few. We’re they demolished with the kresage building?
The name of the catalog store in Larwin plaza was consumers distributors. AGE was further down Sonoma at 37.
I used to live a few blocks from there . I went to the Grand opening of The Larwin Plaza it was built as an investment for a group from S Cal and they included Ruth Buzzy from laugh in I watch her do the ribbon cutting . Before that my friends and I would run through the empty fiefs that were there . At night we would ride our bikes through the plaza . Hartford’s had a tiled entrance surrounded by glass display windows and we would speed around leave skid marks as we made the turn . We would catch frogs in the drainage ditch that ran across the empty fields that became Kmart
My parents shopped there when I was a young mammal in the early to late 1960's. Damn, that was a long time ago! There was a shoe store there that sold Buster Brown shoes too!
OMG, thank you for all comments and the great memories. I was about 7 or so, but remember going to the Sears getting school clothes and candy, I couldn't remember that fish and chip place but we were there on Fridays (that's when the family ate out), the Kresge's is where I discovered now a later candy, there was also a grocery store there called Mayfair Market, there was a store called Heartfields that I loved to shop at and of course Eucalyptus Records where I would buy my 45's. Those were very fond memories for me. Thanks for sharing!!!
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