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Overview

This grocery store has a suspended roof, making it an example of the widespread experimentation with thin-shells of concrete during the 1950s and 1960s. Engineers, such as Jack Christiansen in Seattle, were begining to produce strongly sculptural and eye-catching effects with thin-shell forms.

Building History

Opening in 1958, this remarkable grocery store replaced the car barn, second powerhouse, and main office building of the California Street Cable Railway, demolished the year before. The store operated from about 1958 until 2012 as Cala Foods, before the location was purchased by the fast-growing Trader Joe's grocery store chain in 2012.

Cala Foods, founded by seven Cala brothers in 1947, operated as an independent chain until the mid-1970s, at which time it merged with the local Bell Markets grocery store chain. Billionaire Ronald Burkle's Yucaipa Companies purchased the Bell-Cala entity in 1988, Ralph's Markets, owned by the Cincinnati-based food giant, Kroger, agreed to a merger with Yucaipa six years later. Ralph's sold 11 of 13 Cala stores back to an earlier employee, Harley DeLano, in 2006. These stores were renamed DeLano's IGA, but this firm fell into bankruptcy, and five of seven stores were closed in late 2010.

The store at 1095 Hyde Street was one of two locations retained by Kroger, and it operated the Nob Hill location for a year past its initial closing date. The Nob Hill Cala was shuttered on 12/01/2011. Monrovia, CA-based Trader Joe's obtained the building and opened its Nob Hill location in 2012.

PCAD id: 19647