Comments from Yessayian

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Yessayian
Yessayian commented about Garmar Theater on Oct 30, 2007 at 8:06 pm

Funny! That Janice and my sister both went so many times and never told anyone about it! Yes, the Tamale place is still there in East LA, but getting crowded out. The French Cafe is no more. It was recently taken out. Remember the Wishing Well in front? They had the best soup and bread. I took my first “real” date there back in 1963. Gardunos had the best tacos in the world. Curries Ice Cream was right across from the old Montebello Junior High School. Any photos of that place???? Across from that was a small cafe which sold french fries and “Zombies” to the students with the money for lunch. A Zombie was every flavor at the soda fountain mixed together…sounds terrible today, but it was ordered by most of us back then.
Rick Yessayian

Yessayian
Yessayian commented about Garmar Theater on Nov 24, 2004 at 8:18 pm

Yes, I used to go to the Vogue theater in Montebello. My cousin Rupert called me re. this commentary. I lived a block away from the Garmar. Every Saturday the Garmar had the “Crazy Races”, as you entered you would get a ticket with a number on it. Midway in the day’s program they would have a ‘keystone cops style’ “race” which was humorous and always ended with one of the contenstants ‘winning’. I never was a winner in those races, but they were funny and the winner always won popcorn, drinks and entrance to the shows. They had two glassed in rooms. If your mother asked, you could go in them for a much quieter movie with no sticky floors. I remember seeing “Them” in 3-D and “Forbidden Planet” in the early 50’s. I also remember seeing them build the place and putting up the circular pieces on the front of the building. No one could figure out just what that place was going to be…remember this was in 1950! Many wonderful memories of that place for me.
The Vogue theater usually carried second hand, older or B type movies. I remember going to it occasionally but not too often. It was small and later turned into a Travel Agency, among other small businesses. Westerns, older not-prime-time movies and such was their forte. The cost was 25 cents, not the 50 cents like the Garmar! Wow, two movies, a cartoon, and on Saturdays a “Crazy Race”, all for that!!