Between Dana and Shasta, I found a Mexican jukebox and the ghost of Larry’s Theatrical.
A series of adjacent and beautifully incongruous buildings on a particular stretch of San Carlos just might comprise the most “San Jose” of strip malls. At the sidewalk, one finds a few weathered fading signs denoting the “West San Carlos Center.” Within its confines emerges a microcosm of San Jose itself. Over the course of 60 years, so much has come and gone from this strip mall, yet it remains a glorious epicenter of suburban wasteland commerce.
An early lunch was necessary before I reacquainted myself with the rest of the property, so I ducked into a legendary Mexican joint, El Papucho, which first opened in 1980. The booths and photos seemed like they’d been present ever since. Cassette tapes of Mexican music were for sale in a rack. Used vinyl LPs occupied a few rickety shelves next to the spices. The old-school jukebox right inside the front door was loaded with everything I expected.
The photos were the highlight. There was one shot of Krazy George in a red San Jose Earthquakes shirt as he was interviewed by KNTA Spanish language radio in the ’70s. Similarly, various radio-studio photographs and awards graced the wall. A shot of Pele hung alongside Chivas team photos, paintings, trinkets, spices, sundries, balloons and Budweiser mirrors. A place that time has simply forgotten, El Papucho is a living throwback to what Mexican restaurants used to look like 40 years ago. I’m grateful it still remains. And before you ask, yes, the food is good too.
A short saunter through the rest of the strip mall was even more enlightening. Ghosts of Krung Thai, Moon Video, Tandy Leather Company and Post Tool made themselves apparent. I remembered liquor stores, dumpy check cashing places and, hazily, even a Korean Recording studio. If you’re familiar with Krung Thai on Winchester, this strip mall is where it started. The same unit is now Tostadas.
Thankfully, there were some other old stand-bys, or in the case of the dive bar Red Stag, stumble-bys. Red Stag has been around since the ’60s, although these days it was sandwiched between a boarded-up laundromat and a foot spa.
Other old-timers also remained. The See’s Candies store has existed for at least 30 years in a former Crocker Bank building. The dry-cleaning business has likewise been sitting here for half a century, as has the barber shop on the Shasta Avenue side.
Unlike most other strip malls, some of the façades had not yet been totally redone and converted to the same dumb block-like structures with ugly brick-red, beige and butterscotch color schemes. The See’s Candies building looked the same. Another connected structure, titled “Panache Plaza,” dating back to the late ’50s, featured a two-story alcove of sorts, with an Ethiopian restaurant on the ground level inside, plus various seedy-looking offices upstairs. Forty years ago, these were offices for lawyers, accountants, loan sharks and other sordid stuff.
The Goodwill store offered the most contemporary façade, but inside that store I found the biggest throwback of them all, a masterpiece awaiting anyone who wanted to look. Just beneath the staircase, right above a display of long handle dusters, cloth mops and $1.49 candle holders from India, in giant lettering, there was an homage to the old Larry’s Theatrical store, which occupied the same building for decades, going back to the ’60s.
Larry’s was a San Jose institution for costumes of all sorts. With walls and walls of stuff, aisle after aisle, he had everything—magic tricks, bald caps, fake dirt, clown shoes and just about anything. It was the most popular Halloween shop in the entire South Bay. Stage crews depended on it. Larry himself passed away 20 years ago, but every native San Josean has a story about Larry’s Theatrical, whether piecing together a costume as a kid, buying ballet shoes, or even working in the sewing department during high school. He was one of the all-time legends of San Jose.
These days, with real estate developers always on the hunt for buildings, businesses and histories to destroy, we should all be proud of the stretch of San Carlos between Dana and Shasta. May it never die.
