chain reaction

BULLDOZING
THE BEACHES:
HOW A GIANT
MOUND OF SAND
JUST MIGHT
SAVE YOUR LIFE
JAN
2 0 1 5
(PG. 32)
KALEY CUOCO-SWEETING
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I N W A T E R W A S T E //// R A W F O O D I E
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CHAIN
REACTION
TOP: BRYAN CHRISTIE
SMART & FINAL, L.A .’S OLDEST
GROCERY STORE, WANTS TO BE YOUR
NEW FAVORITE
Illustration by J E S S E L E N Z
LOS ANGELES
JANUARY 2015
17
CIT Y THINK
BUZZ
CUTS
I N 1914, WHEN
sheepherding and
tallow making were
still growth industries in Los Angeles, enterprising business partners Jim Smart
and Hildane Final set up their
wholesale grocery store near the
waterfront in San Pedro. Animal feed, patent medicines, and
gunpowder were all hot items of
the day, and competition in the
grocery business was fierce. To
reduce overhead, Messrs. Smart
and Final invented the “cash-andcarry” concept. Instead of the
long-standing method of pickup
or delivery, customers could gather their own groceries and tote
them to a register without the assistance of a clerk (that diligent,
bespectacled shopkeeper you see
in any cowboy movie). With its
innovative approach and bulk
offerings, Smart & Final went on
to build a wholesale mini empire
in the West by catering to local
restaurants, mom-and-pop businesses, and budget-conscious
customers.
Sofa cushion-size hunks of
cheese and kegs of laundry detergent may have replaced animal
feed and gunpowder, but mega­
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
A Smart & Final warehouse in Santa Ana in 1915. A century later,
the company is competing with Whole Foods and Costco for grocery domination
supermarkets and warehouse
clubs are as popular as ever.
In 2013, Smart & Final made a
tidy $3.2 billion in sales, though
the chain is dwarfed by Ralphs
(owned by Kroger, a national company that accounts for about 20
percent of the local marketplace,
with $98.4 billion that year) and
Costco ($102.8 billion). Unlike
other warehouses, Smart & Final
requires no membership. Now it
wants a bigger bite of the apple—
organic ones, to be exact. The company is rolling out fresh produce
that’s club cheap but Whole Foods
quality. (The specialty market generated $14.2 billion in 2013.) “It’s
L .A . BY THE SLICE
HOW DID WE
SURVIVE HOSTING
OUT-OF-STATE RELATIVES
FOR THE HOLIDAYS?
BY ANN FRIEDMAN
Dropped
them off at
the Americana at Brand
and sped
away. It’s like
adult day care
10%
Bonded
over shared
smugness
when checking the
weather back
home
10%
Ditched our
halfhearted
effort to
go paleo
and ate an
entire pan of
stuffing
5%
Told them
that, sure,
they could
totally try
to walk to
the beach
from here
25%
Already
made our
2015 New
Year’s
resolution:
not hosting
next year
50%
a unique shopping experience,”
says CEO David Hirz of Smart &
Final’s formula. “No place else will
you find the produce department
of a farmers’ market, the variety
of a club store, the low prices of
a mass merchant, and the 1,800
items we carry to support small
businesses.” In its ambition to be
all things to all people, the company went public in September,
raising $160 million to fund Smart
& Final’s expansion. The chain has
200 locations in California (which
includes its Cash & Carry brand),
with 52 more extending as far as
Oregon and Mexico. Twenty more
stores will be added this year.
The company’s stealth success
comes from choosing out-of-theway neighborhoods that have a
strong but underserved community. Cheap rent, lower operating
costs, and higher sales volume
allow the chain to, in the industry argot, maintain everyday low
prices. On average this works out
to be 12 percent to 16 percent lower than its competitors. So why
aren’t we all shopping there? It
seems the one item Smart & Final
doesn’t have is an identity, which
is why the company recently
hired the marketing exec behind
Kohl’s hip rebranding to give its
image a makeover. The promise
of healthful, affordable food for
more Angelenos—that’s a start.
✒ GREG NICHOLS
F I L M : Best
known as
Britta Perry
on the cult TV
hit Community,
Gillian Jacobs
(above) ups her
geek cred as
director of The
Queens of Code,
a short documentary about
computer scientist Grace Hopper
that premieres
January 28 on
fivethirtyeight
.com. B O O KS :
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s faded Hollywood years are
the inspiration
for Stewart
O’Nan’s novel
West of Sunset,
which debuts
January 13.
M U S I C : Musician
and co-owner
of the local
label Innovative
Leisure, Hanni
El Khatib knows
solid garage rock.
Moonlight, his
psychedelic third
album, comes
out January 20.
TELEVISION:
Oscar-winning
director and producer Lee Daniels
is the force
behind Empire, a
juicy dramatic series (out January
7 on Fox) starring
Terrence Howard
as a powerful
hip-hop patriarch
struggling to
hold together
both family and
fortune. With this
level of talent,
plus Timbaland
scoring the
soundtrack, the
show doesn’t
miss a beat.
The
CITY
TICKER
18
9 W I N T E R T E R M S A N G E L E N O S C A N ’ T D E F I N E 1 . H Y P O T H E R M I A 2 . W I N T R Y M I X 3 . B A L A C L AVA
LOS ANGELES
JANUARY 2015
SMART & FINAL: COURTESY SMART & FINAL; JACOBS: SHUTTERSTOCK; GRAPHIC: GREG MABLY
Buzz
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CIT Y THINK
REBIRTH MARK
CIT Y THINKER
s executive
director of the
Mural Conservancy of Los
Angeles, RojasWilliams sees
street art as our city’s
untold history. Murals
are gemstones. They
capture information
and influences from
all of the cultures that
come here and reflect
them outward. They
show and express all of
the feelings of people
like me. I came from
Chile 41 years ago for
political reasons. I’ve
been able to do things
that I never imagined,
not even in my wildest
dreams. Murals are
important because
the stories they convey—the issues that are
raised—aren’t written
in books. They are a
connecting bridge between the streets and
the art institutions. A
child can see a mural
and ask, “What is this?
What is it saying?”
After a 2002 moratorium, a recent city
ordinance made
painting murals legal
again—but that doesn’t
mean L.A.’s walls are a
free-for-all. In an ideal
world we shouldn’t
have a mural ordi-
IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK
Clockwise from top right: Ed Ruscha Monument by Kent Twitchell, who won a settlement after his downtown mural was whitewashed in 2006; They Claim I’m a Criminal by Man One in South
L.A.; Pope of Broadway by Eloy Torrez in downtown
nance regulating art.
Unfortunately because
of the sign companies,
we have to. The regulation does protect muralists, but only when
they register their
works. If artists decide
not to go through the
process because they
want their work to
be there for a short
time, that’s their right.
But if the mural is
whitewashed, they
don’t have the right to
complain. I wish more
people were applying
for permits because
then we wouldn’t have
to worry about a mural’s existence. People
are under the impression that the city erases
murals, but it does not.
The murals are erased
because the neighbors
complain.
The most prominent
restoration work that
will take place in 2015
is on Eloy Torrez’s
70-foot-high Pope of
Broadway, at 242 S.
Broadway. It was first
painted in 1985. I’ve
been working for almost five years to get
funding for the mural, which is iconic.
Anthony Quinn [the
actor is featured in
the piece] has been
claimed by Latinos,
Greeks, Middle Easterners, and Italians,
so it is important to
the diverse Los Angeles community here.
Because of the resurrection of Broadway
and councilmember
José Huizar’s great efforts to improve that
section of downtown
ISABEL
ROJAS -WILLIAMS
EXECUTIVE
D I R E C TO R
Mural Conservancy
of Los Angeles
W H AT S H E ' S D O I N G
Rojas-Williams is
moderating a conversation at
the L.A. Art Show.
> L.A. Convention Center,
January 18.
L.A., Greenland
USA chose to provide
funding for us. We
hope to be done with
the mural’s restoration by 2016.
4 . H OA R F R O S T 5 . W H I T E O U T 6 . T H U N D E R S N O W 7. B L A C K I C E 8 . G R AU P E L 9 . F R O S T B E LT
20
LOS ANGELES
JANUARY 2015
ED RUSCHA MONUMENT: THE MURAL CONSERVANCY OF LOS ANGELES; THEY CLAIM I’M A CRIMINAL: RAY MOND & ALEX POLI/THE MURAL
CONSERVANCY OF LOS ANGELES; POPE OF BROADWAY: RICHARD VOGEL/AP PHOTO; ROJAS-WILLIAMS: NIGEL BUCHANAN
L.A. IS CONSIDERED THE MURAL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, AND
ISABEL ROJAS-WILLIAMS IS ITS CHIEF CURATOR ✒ S H AY N A R O S E A R N O L D