On Sunday, I got to co-interview Billy Dee Williams onstage at Rancho Cucamonga’s Lewis Family Playhouse about his career as part of the library’s Star Wars Reads weekend of events. It was occasionally revealing, and occasionally tense. Read about it in my Wednesday column.
A gift basket of Frito-Lay items was delivered to our newsroom during my vacation. This was in response to my item March 27 about the Frito-Lay plant across the street from our Rancho Cucamonga office constructing an eight-story warehouse for its snack products prior to distribution. An editor kindly locked the basket in her office until my return today.
I’m not a big snacker, and even if I were I couldn’t eat all this, so I set it out for the staff, after taking a couple of items for later consumption. We’ll consider the basket a welcome gift from our new neighbors. No word yet on my idea of a chute to connect the warehouse to our breakroom…
In Wednesday’s column, there’s a short history of Rancho Cucamonga’s Red Hill Coffee Shop stretching back to the 1940s, followed by six items from around that city and a schedule for my movie nights in April at the Ontario library. Last column for the week as I’m on vacation. Back in print April 6.
Sunday’s column starts with a silly, but true, item about an expansion of the Frito-Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga. After that: four Culture Corner items, a plug for my blog and a Valley Vignette.
In Sunday’s column, we take a first look at some political news from Rancho Cucamonga, which may need to be split into City Council districts in response to a legal challenge. Other local cities may face the same issue. Upland’s council is scheduled to hear about it March 28, I’ve just learned.
Wednesday’s column pays tribute to Jerie Lee, a familiar face around Rancho Cucamonga council meetings and the senior center. She died last month. After that: Culture Corner items and a reminder of the Charles Phoenix slide show this weekend.
The Albertsons market at Foothill Boulevard and Vineyard Avenue opens at 8 a.m. Wednesday. The market had closed in March to make way for a Haggen, which lasted six months; Albertsons bought the store out of bankruptcy in November and not long afterward hung “Coming Soon” banners.
I stopped by Tuesday on my lunch hour because from Foothill the store looked open or nearly so. Signs were up and fresh paint marked the entry. The store wasn’t open yet and the windows were mostly covered, but a few gaps showed a fully stocked store and employees milling around.
An employee outside told me the opening time.
The SavOn Pharmacy will be back, as will the Starbucks kiosk, according to signs. For shoppers, who included yours truly, the past 11 months will be like a bad dream.
Red Hill Coffee Shop, an institution in Rancho Cucamonga, is changing hands as of Tuesday, with Jim Moffatt giving the place up after four decades. This end-of-an-era story is the subject of my Sunday column.
Wednesday’s column begins with eight items from Rancho Cucamonga. (These had been planned for Sunday until the Chino Valley Unified news happened, bumping them to the next column.) After that, three Culture Corner items, plus, as the cherry on top, a Valley Vignette.
On Friday I got a tour of Seafood City, a Filipino supermarket that opened a couple of years ago at 11098 Foothill Blvd. in Rancho Cucamonga in a portion of a former Best Buy. (They invited me to a media open house, I attended.)
They sell a lot of items any market sells, such as meat and produce, almost all of which is familiar, and many imported products. Then there are Nongshim noodles, made right here in Rancho Cucamonga. The store has a food court area with freshly prepared Filipino barbecue, noodles and other items, two bakeries and a Jollibee.
At top: I was surprised to see Thrifty ice cream in the freezer case. Above: the seafood area, not surprisingly at a place named Seafood City, has fish on ice on display, as well as live crab, a box of which had one or two feebly waving a claw. The store will clean the fish for you at no charge, according to a sign. The fresh fish usually arrives only a day after being caught.
At least one product name may not have translated well into English. It’s for an “herbal lightening soap.”
