A cornerstone business at a crossroads in Pacific Beach, Crest Liquor is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.
The liquor store, deli and convenience store at 3787 Ingraham St. at the corner of La Playa Avenue, started out as a dozen vacant lots in Crown Point in 1947, noted Greg Cooper, adopted son of the company’s founder, Frank Herbert (Bus) Cooper Jr.
Recently, Cooper reminisced about the history of his family business, how PB has changed over the years, and how he’s marking Crest’s anniversary.
Cooper has historic photos of Crown Point hanging above his store coolers, including one dating back to 1917, before Ingraham Street existed. He pointed to it as he discussed his family’s enduring relationship with the neighborhood.
“There’s a little farmhouse here, and the guy who owned that owned this peninsula,” said Cooper, who noted Crown Point, before Mission Bay (once known as False Bay) was dredged, wasn’t an attractive place to live (bad smell before dredging). “My dad bought the property from the guy who owned that farmhouse.”
Cooper said his dad bought the 12 lots back in 1917. “Each lot, with the debt finance, was $12 per lot, or $144 per month,” he said. “My dad’s father loaned him the money to buy the 12 lots, four of which became the store.”
The original liquor store was slightly more than 800 square feet. It was expanded once in the late ’50s to 1,200 square feet and finally in 1969 to more than 7,000 square feet.
Of Crest’s clientele over the years, Cooper said, “By our calculation, two-thirds of the population of California have visited our business in the last 70 years. The customers of the store have included the famous and the infamous – thugs, gangsters, Hollywood celebrities, a mayor or two of San Diego, a president of Mexico.”
Cooper said Crest Liquor’s patrons list has included at least one Nobel Laureate, Dr. Francis Crick of La Jolla, whose discovery of the double-helix pioneered gene mapping and the unraveling of genetic inheritance.
Cooper noted his main competition these days “is the chains,” the big-box supermarkets, whom he said are challenging to go up against.
“We’re constantly buying products at better prices,” he said. “We own the property, the building, so we have less overhead. We provide good service, good pricing and have a good line of products.”
It helps that many of Crest’s employees have been around for awhile.
“Our manager just retired two weeks ago after 40 years,” noted Cooper. “We’ve still got a lot of people who’ve been here 20 years or more.”
And keeping up with changes in the market over time keeps Cooper busy as well.
“If you take the products that are on the shelf right now, they’re considerably different than what they would have been 20 years ago,” he said. “For example, there’s a surge and interest in whiskeys and bourbons. Five, or 10 years ago it was a dead part of the market. “The Budweisers and Millers of the world were once dominant. Now it’s all craft beers. Boutique wines use to be big, 25 percent of our business. Now it’s about 10 percent. Now the beer market is starting to regress, and the wine market is starting to surge, with the whiskey market on an even plain right now.”
Of his business model, Cooper commented, “We are what our consumers demand of us.”
In celebrating Crest’s anniversary, Cooper confided, “We’re not really sure the exact date the store opened. We’ve got the banner out front (with founder photo). We’re going to put my parents and my wife and my son on an easel, then leave that there in the window for awhile. The new bags we have commemorate our 70th anniversary. We’re going to have some commemorative shirts made up.”
But no firecrackers or Roman candles,” quipped Cooper.
Cooper said most his clientele are locals, people who live in the neighborhood who come in frequently, though he has customers from as far away as La Mesa.
In the future, Cooper’s son Grant, a Marine Corps captain at MCRD, may take over. But that’s yet to be determined.
The liquor store owner is optimistic about his future.
“It’s a great location, about 25,000 cars a day on Ingraham Street,” said Cooper. “We’ve had a great clientele for these 70 years and we hope we serve them well, and we hope we’ve done well by the neighborhood. It’s always our intent to make sure this is a friendly and well-lit upscale type of environment.”