[conspire] Fry's Electronics Palo Alto, 1992-2019

[Rick Moen]

The Palo Alto Fry's Electronics location has been expected to 
close on account of eventual redevelopment, but the end came sooner than 
most observers expected:  Management posted last Friday a notice saying
'Due to the end of our lease, our Palo Alto store will close permanently
on December 27, 2019.'
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/12/27/the-era-of-frys-electronics-comes-to-an-end-in-palo-alto

I almost but not entirely miss the place.

The store was the largest of a number of tenants of the former Bay Side
Cannery, owned by an extraordinary immigrant named Thomas Foon Chew,
about whom see
https://www.losaltosonline.com/news/sections/community/177-features/60810- 
https://www.losaltoshistory.org/2019/04/history-museum-explores-the-life-of-cannery-pioneer-thomas-foon-chew/ .

Chew bought the 4-acre site in April 1918 and developed not only a
cannery and warehouse, there, but also a large warehouse and 19 houses
for employees.  The cannery was the third largest in the world, after
only the ones operated by Del Monte and Libby, processing peaches,
pears, and other fruit.  But Chew died of pneumonia in 1933 at age 42,
and the site was taken over by a peach-packing consortium, Sutter
Packing Company, finally closing in 1949.  It had employed 1,000 workers
until then.

Safeway bought the site, but decided not to use it, and it was passed
through various tenants, e.g., Coca Cola Company at one point used it as
a bottling plant.  These were replaced by mostly shipping, packaging,
and manufacturing tenants, and later technology-related firms (not just
Fry's) and offices.  At one point, part of the sprawling site was a
department store named Maximart.  Currently, it's being held by local
(Cupertino) family-owned commercial real estate development firm The
Sobrato Organization.

-- 
Cheers,                          "Maybe the law ain’t perfect, but it’s the only
Rick Moen                        one we got, and without it we got nuthin'."
rick at linuxmafia.com              -- U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves, circa 1875
McQ! (4x80)