When the Foods Co. supermarket opened its doors on March 24, 1959, it became not only the largest grocery store in Torrance at the time, but also the first business to open on a large plot of land on the northeast corner of Crenshaw Blvd. and Pacific Coast Hwy.
It wouldn’t be the last.
At a luncheon at the Plush Horse restaurant in Redondo Beach, James Bower and Albert Levitt from the development firm Jefferson Co. announced the imminent opening of a new $15 million outdoor shopping center to be built on the 38-acre site in early 1961.
More than 40 stores planned to move into the new Rolling Hills Plaza, which would include the already-thriving Foods Co. These would include department stores, specialty shops, service stores and a supervised child-care center. This last feature had an appropriately 1960s-style theme and name: Space Pirate Park.
Grand opening ceremonies were held at the new complex on March 16, 1961. They included an appearance by the center’s mascot, Susie the donkey, who was given an award by Torrance Mayor Albert Isen in what seems in retrospect to have been an unusually silly publicity stunt. Kedso the Clown also appeared at the ceremonies.
Among the initial stores to open: Beck’s Little Folks, Be-Jac’s Gifts, the House of Chanvicter bridal gown shop, Holland Bakery, Quality Shoes, an optometrist and a hair stylist.
The roster of stores would increase in 1962 with the opening of a Thrifty Drug, a J.J. Newberry variety store and branches of Citizens National Bank and Cabrillo Savings and Loan.
In late 1962, the Sterling theater chain broke ground for a key element of the center: The Rolling Hills Theater, a $500,000 state-of-the-art 1,000-seat single-screen movie palace. Its gala grand opening was held in October 1963.
The theater became the site of a senseless tragedy ten years later, when a robber killed four employees during a holdup there on Feb. 11, 1973. It closed in 1984. Two years later, the American Multi-Cinema (AMC) theater chain opened the Rolling Hills 6 multiplex there.
In 1977, the arrival of the huge Rolling Hills Plaza Racquet Club tennis and recreational sports facility changed the face of the Plaza. The $1.5-million center located on land north of the theater had 15 tennis courts, an indoor pool, eight racquetball courts, a spa, clubhouse, locker rooms and pro shop.
South Bay developer Norm La Caze purchased the Rolling Hills Plaza Shopping Center in 1984, and he immediately began an ambitious development program. It started with a redesign that spruced up storefronts with a more unified design theme and adding landscaping as well as more commercial space.
An even more major redevelopment took place at the shopping center beginning in 1996. By then, the Rolling Hills Racquet Club had been closed for two years. In the empty sports club’s place, the AMC chain would build a supersized new 20-screen theater complex, the Rolling Hills AMC 20. It opened in July 1997.
An additional 60,000 square feet of store building space would be demolished during the redevelopment program, and would be replaced by 64,000 feet of new retail space. Among the casualties was the local branch of the Fuddruckers build-your-own burger chain that fronted Pacific Coast Highway. It was replaced by a new Hollywood Video rental outlet.
A key anchor store came to the center in 1999, when Whole Foods Market moved into the former Ralphs grocery store on its western end near Crenshaw Blvd., where the original Foods Co. outlet had once stood.
Other retail stores came flooding in. Trader Joe’s, Rite-Aid, Tilley’s, Old Navy and a blur of restaurants including Islands, Rubio’s, Starbucks, California Pizza Kitchen and Macaroni Grill, among many others. A large 24-Hour-Fitness gym now occupies its southwest corner.
In more recent times, Old Navy became Bed, Bath & Beyond, itself recently closed due to the chain’s bankruptcy, while Rite Aid closed in 2015, its place taken by a Nike apparel store. A major kitchen fire closed Macaroni Grill that same year, and it became a StoneFire Grill restaurant.
Amid the blizzard of changes at the center over the years, one small retail store remained a constant for decades. Styles of Hawaii had opened its first store in Los Angeles in 1959, selling Hawaiian shirts and other island apparel.
In 1962, the store moved into the Rolling Hills Plaza Shopping Center, where it remained for the next 56 years, until its third set of owners, Linda Uyeda and her Hawaiian-born husband Kevin Ajinine, finally decided to close it.
Styles of Hawaii’s longevity proved to be an exception to the constantly evolving retail environment that surrounded it at the Rolling Hills Plaza.
Sources:
Daily Breeze archives.
Los Angeles Times archives.
Palos Verdes Peninsula News archives.
Torrance Press Herald archives.
Reader comments:
July 18, 2023
Thank you so much for your article on the Rolling Hills Plaza, Spent many Sundays at the Rolling Hills theatre watching the latest Disney movies. But my fondest memories were of the Styles of Hawaii. My mother was born and raised on Oahu (civil service brat). It was one of her favorite places to shop. She would buy many gifts for our family, and sent many back to Hawaii to relatives. We also enjoyed the new AMC 20 with my kids! She passed in 2007, but this article brought back many wonderful memories. Thank you so much. Aloha!
Dawn R. Breski
