Verdugo Views: Fond memories of a neighborhood hangout
As a young boy, Jeff Margarit was a regular customer at Gerry’s Orange-O, near the Vons in the shopping center at Glendale Avenue and Doran Street.
“It was the ‘Cheers’ of Glendale,” said Margarit, who grew up on Doran across from R.D. White Elementary School. Known these days as the “Electrician Magician,” Margarit began going to the Orange-O back in the 1960s, when it was still an Orange Julius franchise.
When the owner, Gerry Sills, left the franchise in the early 1970s and turned his place into a hamburger stand, the name changed, but that was about all.
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Here’s a 1993 Los Angeles Times description: “At first glance, it’s a hole-in-the-wall, with an aging counter, red stools and dust-covered sports pennants hanging high on the walls. And there’s none of the razzmatazz of a fast-food chain restaurant at Gerry’s. What you find is an old-fashioned neighborhood hangout for people of all ages — grown-up sports fans, kids hanging out after school, mothers and their youngsters — all dropping by for a snack and a chat.”
And Margarit was one of those kids hanging out after school. In a series of emails and phone conversations over the course of several months, Margarit told me of his connection with Orange-O.
A few years after his 1985 graduation from Glendale High, he began working for Doll Electric, often partnering with an older man. “He was pretty cranky; he used to tell his customers, ‘I’m an electrician, not a magician.’ I thought that was pretty funny.”
When Margarit went out on his own in 1996, he worked that phrase around to describe his new company. He continued to go to Orange-O, but now it was at lunchtime.
“I started talking to people and said I was an electrician and that’s how I got my jobs,” he said.
But the gathering place that he and so many others loved closed in 2001 when Vons expanded. “It was sad,” Margarit recalled. “I cried the day [Sills] retired.”
The electrician, by then living up in Shadow Hills, tried to save as much of Orange-O as he could. Sills left with “the ‘60s-era orange juicer and an album filled with photos he had taken of his customers in recent weeks,” according to the L.A. Daily News, April 28, 2001.
Margarit said he got the rest. “Gerry gave it to me. I got the famous football from a USC team signed by the players that he kept on top of his cash register,” he said, adding that he also got the stools, tables, equipment and greasy pennants.
Margarit put it all into a vintage gas station already on his property and began hosting Orange-O parties every couple of months. “Gerry came and prepared hot dogs,” Margarit said.
When he moved to Acton, Margarit bought another old gas station, moved it onto the property and placed the Orange-O items inside. He continued to have parties, sometimes raising money for ill children.
But eventually, like Gerry’s Orange-O, all that came to an end. Margarit moved again and was not able to take his large pieces with him.
He kept as much as he could, he said. He still has the old clock, the one from the days when Gerry’s was still an Orange Julius, plus a couple of signs.
“Gerry was such a good guy,” Margarit said. “That’s why I tried to keep the memory of his place alive. It was the greatest place.”
To the Readers
Gerry Sills closed the Orange-O in 2001, to the dismay of many people. I wanted to contact him in connection with this story and was finally put in touch with him via email through the efforts of Bill James.
Sills wrote in his reply email, “The Pagliuso family was my landlord for those years, and I owe them everything. Around 1972, we severed relations with Orange Julius and became Gerry’s Orange-O.
“Perhaps this one incident can give you a slight picture of life at the Orange-O. One day, a mom was sitting at the counter with her tots as I was serving burgers and chatting with customers. Suddenly this lady hollered, ‘[Expletive] Gerry, I really like coming in here with my kids and I really like your food but can’t you guys talk about anything but sports?’”
When Vons expanded in 2001, Sills closed the doors on Orange-O. Nowadays, on some weekday mornings, he has coffee in front of the Ralphs on Central Avenue near Stocker Street.
“Most of the days, I am with retired Glendale High teacher Steve Holmoe, whose father, Ivan, barbered at Glenoaks and Grandview from 1948 until 2001. Thanks for your interest,” Sills said.
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KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com. or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.
