The Busy Bee Market occupies an unassuming small building in a quiet residential section of western San Pedro.
But, come lunchtime, it’s not unusual to see trucks and vans driven by cable installers, phone linemen, city utility workers and more parked up and down the surrounding street, along with LAPD motorcycles and fire trucks.
The Busy Bee operated for decades as a typical neighborhood market until Ben and Norma Lee bought the store in 1978. It had fallen into disrepair, so the pair spruced it up and, fatefully, decided to open a deli counter in the back that sold sandwiches.
At first, they planned to distribute them through liquor stores for resale. When word of mouth spread, they began selling them exclusively in at their market. The sandwich operation has been booming ever since.
It turns out that the modest Busy Bee building, which has been remodeled several times, has a history stretching back nearly 100 years.
The earliest mention of the store comes in a December 1925 classified ad in the San Pedro News Pilot noting a store for lease at 2413 S. Walker Ave.
Businessman Mike King must have answered the ad. He placed an ad for the new Walker St. Grocery in July 1926 that noted, “Anyone who wants credit will get it.” No pictures of this first store have surfaced.
A month later, he petitioned the city for permission to build a new structure on the site. Advertisements offering retail space for rent at the address ran for several years in the News Pilot.
Finally, apparently after not getting any takers during the early years of the Depressionin King announced the opening of King’s Winery at the site in February 1934. The wholesale and retail wine operation opened just two months after the ratification of the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition on Dec. 5, 1933.
The winemaking and selling operation was short-lived, apparently. Sweaney’s Grocery Store opened there sometime around 1935. It was in turn bought out by Stowell’s Cash Grocery, which began operating in October 1937.
The turnover in ownership continued during the 1940s. Mr. and Mrs. T. E. Stephenson bought the market in 1943, and named it Jayne’s Cash Market in honor of their 4-year-old daughter. Two years later, the grocery changed hands again, becoming Fillman’s Market in 1945.
Here the story gets a little hazy, but we surmise that the new owners whose request to make structural improvements at the address that was approved in April 1947 were the owners of the Busy Bee.
One of the earliest ads for the Busy Bee Market appears in the Palos Verdes Peninsula News on Feb. 2, 1950. The market was close enough to the Peninsula to warrant advertising in the PVPN.
The market soldiered onward, but, as happened to many a neighborhood grocery store, it was beset by competition from all sides over the years. Convenience store chains eroded its accessibility advantage, while larger high-volume grocery stores outmatched it on breadth of selection and price.
Examples of both stores sprung up on nearby 25th St. in San Pedro. The neighborhood store languished, until it reached the condition in which the Lees found it in 1978. Their decision to offer jumbo homemade sandwiches of high quality at a reasonable price turned out to be a master stroke.
Unlike Subway or Quizno’s, Busy Bee offers no place for patrons to sit and eat their sandwiches. As a result, it has become customary to grab a drink from the market and the way out, and take your sandwich to any number of different scenic spots nearby.
Royal Palms State Beach and the Korean Bell area at Angels Gate Park offer two of the most scenic spots to enjoy your feast. Averill Park, one of the area’s prettiest green spaces, is another nearby option.
The Busy Bee experience also includes queuing up in what can become long lines if you arrive at lunchtime. One also needs to study the menu and know exactly what you want before arriving at the efficiently operated, no-nonsense deli counter. Dawdling at the counter is frowned upon.
Not long after it opened, the Busy Bee’s sandwich operation began to earn mentions as a hidden gem in the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, and other media outlets.
It has become a local institution, often recommended to newcomers and curiosity seekers as one of the places to seek out “the real San Pedro.” Its boosters include a cross-section of San Pedro regulars, from Councilman Joe Buscaino to pioneering San Pedro musician Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE).
The Busy Bee, still managed by the Lee family, continues to thrive in its modest setting, offering its distinctive sandwiches for more than 40 years to tourists, locals, workers and anyone else who appreciates a well-made hoagie.
Sources:
Busy Bee Market Facebook page and website.
Daily Breeze files.
Los Angeles Times files.
More San Pedro files.
Palos Verdes Peninsula News files.
San Pedro News Pilot files.
