100 Years Ago Today in Grandview, #24

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On 26th June 1924, Angus Fraser was issued a building permit for a $2,500 “residence”. However, in 1926/27, Fraser’s company Crystal Dairy built a dairy on the site.

Founded in 1922, Crystal Dairy was the largest independent dairy in Vancouver by 1936. Most of the building was essentially a milk delivery depot and stables, but some of the frontage along Commercial Drive had served retail.

The retail space was completely renovated in 1939 to be the finest soda-and-ice-cream fountain in East Vancouver. This was a title they fought over with Louis Toban’s Toots Restaurant at Commercial and Broadway. For more than a decade the two competed mainly in a series of renovations, using new chrome, glass, and lighting, each trying to outdo the other in popularity with the teen crowd.

In those pre-feminist days, girls would vie for positions as waitresses at Crystal Fountain as it was the best place to meet eligible boyfriends and husbands.

The Frasers sold the dairy a few years after the War and by 1954, the new owners had consolidated operations elsewhere and the dairy and fountain were closed. For the next 15 years, the building served as the offices and warehouse of the Select Music Company, a division of Acme Novelties.

In 1968, the building, damaged from two recent fires, was purchased for $90,000 by Carlo Gallo and Giuseppe Padovano, and renovated into the Italian Melodi Dance Hall. When it opened, the Echo called it “fabulous, new”, and described it as “in the style of old Venice with a terrazo floor, beautiful pictures on the wall,and a statue complete with fountain in the foyer.”  Dinner and dancing for New Years Eve that year was $15.

It was a success for a while but in 1974, the same owners closed the hall and remodeled the store into G & P Food Market.

From 1995 to 2001, the building was used first by a liquidator and then by a haulage company.  Wonderbucks took over the space in 2001 and stayed until the size of the rent forced its closure in early 2017. Since then, it seems to have settled nicely into being the home of Rufus Guitars.