Dime Store Dining : You Can Get Almost Anything in an Old-Fashioned Variety Store--Even a Chocolate Soda With Your Breakfast

“Can’t we? Oh, why can’t we, Mother?” How could anyone see that big cutout cardboard chocolate soda and not need one? But the tilt of Mother’s head indicated that a soda, a hot dog or anything at a dime-store lunch counter would be fatal.

And then I grew up and Mother died and so did the dime stores, one by one. Pasadena’s dime store was scared to death by the mall, but “We’re not a-scared of this mall, are we?” says Dean McFall, the woman who runs the restaurant in Glendale’s Kress store, to Ramesh Kohli, the store’s manager. They’re not. They have old, old customers and new, young customers, and business is better than ever. “We call it a variety store,” Kohli says. Variety store --of course, they called themselves variety stores, and we called them dime stores. It was like going back to Michigan childhood to be standing in one just like those in the ‘20s and ‘30s; this one even had a lunch counter. Mrs. McFall runs it single-handed--has for 15 years and intends to forever. “They’ll have to fire me or tear it down,” she says. When she goes on vacation, old regulars won’t come in till she gets back.

I call it Kress, but Kohli says: “Everything is changed to Newberry’s now--except the storefront letters outside.” They’re fat and gold--S. H. KRESS--and I hope they give them to me when they come down.

Folks, I offer you two treasures for Christmas--two dime stores from the past, flourishing in the present, not half a block from each other on Brand Boulevard in Glendale: Newberry’s (nee Kress) and F. W. Woolworth. Bounce joyously from one to the other. “Ours is longer, but theirs is up and down,” says Doris Denham, seven years with Woolworth’s. She often special-orders (yarn, fabrics or bras) for customers. “It only takes a week, and I call them when we get the merchandise. A lot of people really like that. We sell a lot of underwear.”

The “up and down” in Kress refers to the stairs to the basement: yardage, hardware, kitchenware, toys. How about fish? Fish were in the basement when I was a kid. No fish here, however; they’re over at Woolworth’s with parakeets, finches and hamsters.

“People need variety stores more than ever,” Kohli says. “How can you expect people on a fixed income to pay their rent and go shop at the Broadway? We carry everything anyone would need in the home.” There’s not much you can buy for a dime anymore, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still bargains. Indeed, the $4.99 striped cotton Rugby shirt I look at seems as smart and well made as $30 ones I’ve seen.

“Hello, Mrs. Chatsworth,” a clerk says to a woman, though the clerk hasn’t worked here four months. In both stores, clerks and customers know each other, are friends. One of the lunch-counter regulars is Michael Cooper--”mother’s helper,” he calls himself. He fills coffee filters and gets things for Mrs. McFall just because he wants to.

Hershey Christmas kisses, chocolate-covered cherries, candy canes, lots of toys for less than $2--isn’t there someone I could get that rubber-stamp Print Shop set for? And don’t kids play ball anymore? I did all the time. “We did, too, when we were growing up,” Denham says, sadly. “Lots of people today live in apartments.”

So what did I buy? A Ping-Pong-ball pistol (“Rapid fire, glows in the dark”), candles, a yellow Mini Mack truck, two red coat hooks and a Super Pinky ball. I wasn’t up to the Hearty Breakfast--two eggs, four bacon strips, sausage patty, hash browns and toast for $1.99--but Dean McFall fixed me a marvelous hot bran muffin. And although it was still morning, I had--um, Mother--a chocolate soda.