POST-WWII, you weren’t bound to go hungry in downtown Marysville
By Dick Marquette
The Post Office wanted us to be at the same place every day and at the same time. People set their watches by their mailman. So the 40-some restaurants on my mail route made timing fairly easy.
And how well I shall remember that first day in my route, tucked away in the old Lyric Theater there was an old-time watchmaker, whose name was “Buck Williams.” Buck handed me a watch with a fancy chain on it and the watchmaker’s name on that watch was Peter Engel, Marysville, California, and Buck gave his instructions. “There damn you, and keep it wound and don’t be late!”
One of the first cafes I would encounter on 5th street was “Darb’s.” It was run by Stan Darby and his wife. Cathy worked there ...
she came from Germany and had married and then unmarried. Another girl, “Janet,” also worked there. Darb’s was about where Cotton’s is now.
Across the street, seemingly out of place, was George Harney’s home. George had been an illustrator for Disney of Hollywood.
Down 5th Street, at
403, was George’s place
... a fairly well known restaurant with a standard bill of fare and was well known among the old-timers here. Later it became Dick’s restaurant and a waitress named Tammie worked there.
I was there the morning she was telling about her birthday. A big janitor from the Hotel heard her and he pulled a chair out in the center of the place and commenced to give her a good licken and one to grow on. That was 21 whacks and I don’t know which end was redder.
On the corner of 5th and High streets was George Wong’s restaurant. He was a very good cook of Chinese and American
food. George Wong was related to Chiang Kaishek.
Across the street the Marysville Hotel had a good lunch counter and a wonderful cook who came up from Sacramento on the afternoon train and he cooked at Hunter’s Mask or the restaurant they called after the old-line London place, “Beefeaters.” ...
On the northwest corner of the hotel was the
Palm Drug Store, one of Marysville’s half dozen or more drug stores and one that had a real classy soda fountain. My best friend’s wife worked there and she looked like she belonged, having just graduated from high school where she was voted “Miss Everything.”
Just up the street, north of the State theater was Eleanor’s Coffee Shoppe, and on the southeast corner of 6th and E was the Greyhound Depot. We seldom notice the little things of life, but had you been sitting in the Greyhound Depot sipping a soda, you would have noticed the buses that pulled in may have had motors in the front and listed on the sides
under the windows were towns: San Francisoc, Los Angeles, Omaha, Denver, Kansas City, St Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York.
Returning to D street of course, the old F.W. Woolworth store had a great lunch and I knew many of the people who worked there. ... all these ladies had to cook, take orders, wash dishes and anything useful. They wore crisp white immaculate uniforms with clean shoes. These girls were inspected before they set to. The waitress staff at J.J. Newberry was treated likewise with the fingernails and hair net carefully examined.
The Newberry five and dime was truly a step back in time. It had squeaky wooden floors, candy weighed out in whte paper bags and the decor was strictly from the flapper era (the 19101920s) and I could never get over the old brass candy scales the girls carried.
Down on the corner of 4th and D was Kirk’s Drug Store. It is now Sullivan’s Saddlery, but at one
time it had a great long lunch counter with all the favorite sundaes and shakes, sodas and the best in sandwiches. There were several soda fountains in Marysville then and the train always stopped in front of Kicks.
There were two streetcar tracks down D street then. There were little streetcars and then there were those big green interurbans that took you to Chico, Sacramento, Woodland and yes, even San Francisco. It was a quiet ride on green velvet seats, hand-rubbed cherry wood, beveled glass and valet service. Those were the days. In 1939 one could ride to the San Francisco Worlds Fair for $2.00.
Farley’s (Wes) Ideal Bakery was at 318 D street, where the alleyway north of the Brick is now. It had blue tinted plate glass windows. They had plenty of good food ... more of the short order type, but very good.
The Goodwill store was at 310 D street and next door was the Roma Grill, which for some reason was not only popular with the lunch crowd but drew good evening crowds.
The last place at that location was the El Central, which served Mexican food and was a good place. Nearly every day the grandma would hand me a letter to mail to Mexico, give me a buck, insist I keep the change, and then give me coffee and Mexican pastries.
I felt like a celebrity in there. They even had a tune in the Mexican juke box called “Cartero Amigo,” which they played for me. All those Mexican guys would laugh and slap me on the back, making one wonder what in hell the rest of the song said ...