Change in Store — Silver Lake’s 99 Cents Only Store Will Soon Be No More

NOTE: a version of this piece was written for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council’s “Ask Silver Lake” column.

‘Ask Silver Lake’ is dedicated to exploring the history and insights of our community. If you have questions or ideas you’d like us to consider, please drop a comment or send them to outreach@silverlakenc.org.‘

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On April 5th, it was announced that all 371 locations of the Commerce-based chain, 99 Cents Only, would close. As a result, roughly 14,000 employees will be out of a job. Additionally, Silver Lake will lose an amenity on which many had come to rely for affordable produce and all manner of deeply discounted products. While we don’t yet know what the future holds for 99 Cents Only Store No. 83, its past has been sporadically documented. We can, therefore, reflect on its changing character, its changing relationship with the neighborhood, and speculate about its future.

The founder of 99 Cents Only was Dave Gold. Gold was born in Cleveland to a couple of Russian Jewish immigrants. The Golds moved to Los Angeles in 1945 and, at the elder Gold’s liquor stall in Grand Central Market, Dave experimented with selling bottles of booze for a mere 99 cents – although, adjusted for inflation, that’s the equivalent today of about nine dollars. In 1982, Dave Gold opened his first 99 Cents Only. As inflation continued, the buying power of 99 cents decreased and in 2007, the chain began selling products for more than 99 cents. A private equity firm bought Gold’s company in 2012. Gold died in April 2013 at the age of 80.

The building in which Silver Lake’s 99 Cents Only opened was built in late 1936 by the Virgil Investment Company and the Zimmer Construction Company.  Its first tenant was Food Mart No. 14. Food Mart, as you’ve no doubt surmised, was a grocery store. Its inventory was auctioned in 1952 and, presumably under new management, it continued as Food House Market. 

Food House Market made the news in 1956, when its employees – members of the Retail Clerks Union – went on strike. As a result of the labor action, they got a pay raise and increased benefits. On the instances in which Food House Market was in the papers, however, it was less often due to labor and more often because of burglaries

The market was robbed of $7,000 in 1954 (more than 80,000 in 2024 dollars). It was robbed again in 1956 and ‘57. In 1960, LAPD officers finally prevailed when a pair of robbers stumbled out of the store. It seems that, unable to find the safe when they broke in, the two criminal masterminds proceeded to get drunk on the store’s supply of booze. When the manager arrived to open the store in the morning, they forced him to open the safe. By the time they made their escape, the police were waiting outside. 

Whether or not the store’s ownership changed, or merely its name, isn’t clear but by the early 1990s, the market was known as Marukane Food House. Whatever the case, by 1995 it was reborn as La Bamba Rancho Market. A tiny Fotomat was demolished to expand its car storage capacity to 45 parking spaces. By 1997, La Bamba was gone and Sunset Supermarket had risen in its place. The sun soon set on that market too and, appropriately, the 99 Cents Only store opened around January 1999. 

We’ll have to wait and see what’s next. The safe bet seems to be a generic 5-over-1. It would feel sort of like poetic justice of the 99 Cents became a 99 Ranch. I wouldn’t be mad if it became an Great Wall, H Mart, Heartland, Hòa Bình, Hong Kong, Island Pacific, Marukai, Mitsuwa, Nijiya, 168, Shun Fat, Tokyo Central, Zion, or other Asian supermarket. Despite their prevalence across the region and Asians being the largest “racial” minority, there have been zero Asian Markets whatsoever in Mideast Los Angeles since the 2017 closure of A-Grocery Warehouse. Come to think of it, A-Grocery Warehouse was supposed to be replaced by a food hall that never came. One could imagine a food hall or swap meet occupying the space – and maybe a night market in its vast parking lot. 

What would you like to see? Another affordable market like a Food 4 Less, Grocery Outlet, or Pic ‘N’ Save? An “ethnic” market like a Super King or Vallarta? Social housing? A park? Something else? Let me know in the comments.

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Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, essayist, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking paid writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities. He is not interested in generating advertorials, cranking out clickbait, or laboring away in a listicle mill “for exposure.”

Brightwell has written for Angels Walk LA, Amoeblog, Boom: A Journal of California, diaCRITICS, Hey Freelancer!, Hidden Los Angeles, and KCET Departures. His art has been featured by the American Institute of Architects, the Architecture & Design Museum, the Craft Contemporary, Form Follows Function, the Los Angeles County Store, Sidewalking: Coming to Terms With Los Angeles, Skid Row Housing Trust, the 1650 Gallery, and Abundant Housing LA.

Brightwell has been featured as subject and/or guest in The Los Angeles Times, VICE, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, LAist, CurbedLA, Office Hours Live, L.A. Untangled, Spectrum News, Eastsider LA, Boing Boing, Los Angeles, I’m Yours, Notebook on Cities and Culture, the Silver Lake History Collective, KCRW‘s Which Way, LA?, All Valley Everything, Hear in LA, KPCC‘s How to LA, at Emerson College, and at the University of Southern California.

Brightwell is currently writing a book about Los Angeles.

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