Tom Heffernan
Did you know there used to be a grocery store on Fernleaf, one house in from Ocean Blvd? While reviewing this great photo from the Sherman Library of the Kerckhoff Marine Lab and the Hole House sitting above it, we noticed a sign for a grocery store on Fernleaf.
One of our Facebook group members, Virginia Thomas Fickes, whose family home at Goldenrod & Bayview was one of the first homes in CdM, filled us in on the story.
“I was born in 1946, so I was just a young child towards the end of when the small grocery store was there,” said Virginia. “I remember it was on the alley. There were special glass squares for the front window. My dad used to speak of the grocery store. The growing small community needed the grocery store on Fernleaf before there were markets on the Coast Highway. Later on in the 1950’s, the Coast Super Market came to town on Marigold.”
The grocery store was located in the lower level of this house at 209 Fernleaf – the glass square front window was still there in these 2011 Google Streetview images.
The building that housed the grocery store – with its glass squares for the front window – was still there in 2011 per Google Street View but by 2014 it had been torn down.
The original house was torn down and replaced with this structure in 2014.
Perhaps someday, some of us will be able to wow the ‘youngsters’ of 2060 with tales of how there used to be a grocery store in the Flower Streets between Iris & Jasmine along PCH before it became drug store row.
