Yesterday, I mentioned the now-defunct Hughes Market chain in Southern California and I thought you might like to hear the story of how it was founded…
In 1948, Aviation Mogul Howard Hughes took control of RKO Studios. He was interested in making movies but he was more interested in making money…and he was especially interested in making starlets. Within a few years, he had a number of them being "kept" in scattered apartments in the West Hollywood area, each waiting for whenever the Bashful Billionaire craved the pleasure of her company.
Hughes paid their rent and the ladies would often hit him up — with greater and greater frequency and for larger and larger amounts — for "grocery money." Hughes began to suspect that the money was being spent on things other than trips to the market. Some of them might even have been spending it on male friends, he feared. He decided he had to do something about it.
Mr. Hughes was the kind of guy who never bought a nineteen-cent fly swatter when he could have acquired or opened a multi-million-dollar extermination company. His solution to the problem of escalating demands for grocery money was to open a market which, of course, he named Hughes Market. His various mistresses had unlimited charge accounts there but he would no longer give them cash.
That solved that problem but there was an unexpected bonus for Howard R. Hughes. The market was very profitable so he opened another and another…and soon there were Hughes Markets all over Southern California until the nineties. Then through a complex series of acquisitions and mergers, the stores all closed or turned into Ralphs Markets.
Isn't that a great story? There's not a shred of truth in it but isn't it a great story?
The Hughes Market chain was actually started by a man named Joseph Hughes — no relation to Howard. It was later run by members of his family, not one of whom was even distantly related to Howard. That's the actual story but for years, I heard the bogus one about Howard Hughes starting the chain. Yes, even before the Internet became a part of all our lives, there were phony stories and bad information in this world.
Here's another true story involving a Hughes Market. As I've said here, I used to like to shop at the one at Beverly and Doheny at 1 or 2:00 in the morning or even later. There's now a Ralphs there and it closes at 1 AM and it's no fun. It's just a place to buy Minute Rice. But the old Hughes there was open all night and there was a bit of a party atmosphere after about 2 AM.
They had a crew of workers who'd start around that hour, restocking all the shelves and cleaning and neatening things up for next day shoppers. The usual sedate music that was played over the market's speakers would be turned off and someone had a huge portable radio that would be blasting rock music you could hear throughout the store. Everyone who worked there was very friendly and happy and those of us who stopped in to buy groceries would get into the spirit. You even saw shoppers dancing in the aisles. I liked doing my marketing there then.
One morning — it may have been around 3 AM — I was in there putting cans in my cart and there were two amazing young ladies shopping as well. They were loud and laughing and more than a little drunk and they were stunningly gorgeous due to hair (probably wigs) and make-up (a lot of it) and tight dresses that, as they say, left little to the imagination. And they both had matching bodies that had to have been surgically enhanced to a ridiculous degree. They looked like blow-up sex dolls come to life.
Easy assumption: They were strippers, probably from that strip club a few blocks away on La Cienega. You didn't have to be named Sherlock to arrive at that deduction. Oh — and each had a huge, bulging handbag. Remember that fact.
Not my type. I like real and I don't like drunk. In fact, there are very few things I find less attractive in this world than drunk. But it was hard not to pay attention to them and what they were doing. Each had a shopping cart and it almost looked like they were having a contest: Which of them could cram more of the store into their cart?
It was like they were buying out the place. I don't know if I heard one of them say this — like I said, they were very loud — or if I imagined it…but the scenario seemed to be that they were moving into a new apartment together and they were stocking it with everything they might want to eat during the next twenty years or so.
Their carts were so full of groceries and piled so high that items kept spilling out and they'd pick them up and squeeze them back in. I watched a little of this with some amusement until an urgent thought hit me: I must get to the checkout counter before them.
At this hour, there was only one and it was only open when someone wanted to check out. One of the folks stocking shelves would stop stocking to man the checkout counter for as long as necessary. Judging by the ladies' carts, a solid half-hour would be necessary. At least.
I stopped watching the ladies and I began rushing about, grabbing the last few items I needed and heading for the checkout…
…and I got there seconds too late. With audible gasps of effort, they were shoving those overstuffed shopping carts up to the open cash register. I asked if it was possible to open another and the guy who was starting on their carts said, "Sorry! I'm the only one here tonight who's allowed to work the register and only one is operating." So I'd have to wait.
And wait. And wait. And wait some more.
The two giggling drunk ladies looked less and less attractive as I waited with my twelve items while they were checked out with maybe a hundred each. This was in days before the automatic scanners we have these days. These days, the checker just passes an item over a glass and something goes boop and the price registers on the register. Sometimes, it's even the right price.
But this checker had to enter each purchase by hand and often, he had to stop and look up a price or yell something like, "Harry! Go find out what the 14 ounce box of Froot Loops costs!" Those ladies did like their Froot Loops.
Don't start feeling as impatient as I did that morning, standing there and waiting. We're almost to the punchline.
Finally, the contents of both carts had been checked through and a guy who came over to bag everything was almost finished stuffing it all into grocery bags filling what were now five or six carts. The total on the register was close to a thousand dollars. This was in the mid-eighties. It would be way more than twice that today.
Ah, I foolishly thought. They just have to pay so I should be out of here in three minutes…
And then the ladies dashed my hopes of getting home before dawn and they also confirmed my hunch that they were strippers. They opened those huge purses of theirs and began hauling out and counting out their money. They were paying in slightly-damp one-dollar bills.