Remembering When
by
Jerry Person
Huntington Beach City Historian
Dedicated to the people of Huntington Beach
From Haircuts to FishTacos
Not many visitors or residents alike today realize when they enter Wahoo Taco for a fish taco at 120 Main that they are entering a building with a long Huntington Beach history as we shall see this week. Although today the building has a modern false front, the building is very old and dates back to the start of Huntington Beach and before when we were known as Pacific City.
Part of the downstairs were rented as barber shop in 1905 where our early farmer residents might get a needed shave and haircut and the other half of the building was a billiard parlor.
By 1909, Ellis and Dudley had opened their cleaners with Dr. W. E. Whealen upstairs. But iby April 1920, pioneer druggist R. L. Obarr opened his first drugstore here until July 1920 when he moved across the street to his new building at the corner of Main Street and Ocean Avenue. Pacific Coast Highway was then known as Ocean Avenue.
After Obarr moved out, George E. Fowler moved his business Fowler's Paint, Paper & Variety store in by August of 1920 and just in time to witness the start of our town's oil boom.
By 1922 some of our early businesses were getting rich and needed a place to keep their money and the downstairs business became the Los Angeles Trust & Savings Bank. That all changed when the Home State Bank occupied the building in 1926 and when the big earthquake hit in 1933, the U.S. Post Office used it as a temporary location.
By January 1941, F. Berdelman and K. Burdick were operating the B & B Sandwich Shop and by early 1944 Bill Burton was there at the B & B Cafe. From late 1944 and through the 1940's, Jerry Yound and later Stan Portor were there at their Cabin Cafe.
From the 1950's through to the 1980's is what most residents remember it as a self service laundry called Launderite with J.E. Galloway.
Randy Lewis Surfboards used it for his surf shop until October 1984 and for the month of November of 1984 it was called the Daily Planet. But in December of 1984 and until 1985 Lewis again had it.
Mad International 1986 and Carl Hayward Surf 1988 - 1989 and finally Wahoo Tacos round out its rich history.