A Tribute to Small Burbank Grocery Stores
The Hillside Deli
The big supermarket chains - Safeway, Ralph's, etc. - haven't entirely taken over. This is the Hillside Deli in Burbank, one of Burbank's two remaining small grocery stores. On the corner of San Jose and Sixth Streets, it has been in place since at least the 1960's, probably earlier than that. Despite the rampant neighborhood expansion of apartments and condos, it remains. However, the graffitti on the tree and the mail box is a cause for concern...
Otto's
This is Otto's on the corner of Clark and Brighton Streets. In a better state of repair than the Hillside Deli, it dates from at least the Sixties. Let the small neighborhood grocery store live on!
Internet correpondent RuthAnn Talley adds, "Otto's on Clark St. existed when John Burroughs was a junior high school (that was prior to 1948). And the market on Sixth was there in the early forties and probably in the twenties. I also shopped at a really small market on the corner of Bel Aire and Santa Anita in 1956."