Galco's Soda Pop Stop

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Galco's Soda Pop Stop
Obscura Day Los Angeles (4468755301).jpg
Exterior of Galco's Soda Pop Stop
Location Highland Park, Los Angeles
Opening date1897
Website Official website
Interior of Galco's Soda Pop Stop Galco's!!!! (23241962612).jpg
Interior of Galco's Soda Pop Stop

Galco's Soda Pop Stop is a soft drink specialty store located in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. [1] [2] The shop's predecessor, Galco's Grocery, was originally opened in Downtown Los Angeles by Galioto and Corto Passi as an Italian grocery store in 1897. [3] [4] Galco's moved to its current storefront in Highland Park in 1955. [2] [5] It has specialized in carrying independent sodas since 1995, when John Nese succeeded his father as the store's owner. [2] According to John Nese, he shifted to stocking sodas during a period of poor business for grocery stores; in his own words, "the big chain stores were buying up the distribution channels [and] they just raised the prices and they made sure that no one can compete. So all the little guys went out of business." [5]

Galco's stocks and ships more than 700 different sodas, many of them hard-to-find and small-batch brands; [1] [4] it also offers a variety of beers, old-fashioned candies, and fresh sandwiches. [1] [2] In 2013, Galco's carried 108 different diet sodas, 68 cream sodas, and 61 root beers. [2]

Among the more prominent sodas that Galco's stocks include Afri-Cola, Bubble Up, Dad's Root Beer, Faygo, Fentimans Curiosity Cola, Green River, Jolt Cola, Jones Soda, Kickapoo Joy Juice, Manhattan Special, Moxie, Mr. Q Cumber, Nesbitt's, and Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer. [1] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] In 2011, a small batch of White Rose Cream Soda was produced specially for Galco's by Natrona Bottling Company as a fund-raiser for the Southwest Museum. [9] [10] Candies stocked by the store include Clark Bars, Lemonheads, Mallo Cups, Razzles, Scooter Pies, Sky Bars, Turkish Taffy, and ZERO bars. [4] The beers it stocks are primarily American craft beers, including Dogfish Head, Fat Tire, Lost Coast, and Russian River, and imports such as St. Peter's Winter Ale of England. [11]

Galco's additionally has a Soda Creation Station that allows customers to create their own personal soda, choosing the flavors and carbonation level before capping and labeling their bottle. [7] [10] [12] Also, since 2011, the shop hosts an annual Summer Soda Tasting event. [10] [12] In 2012, it stopped stocking Dr Pepper products after the Dublin Dr Pepper bottling plant was shut down. [13] Galco's was featured in Visiting... with Huell Howser episodes 811 (in 2016) [14] and 1602 (in 2017). [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soft drink</span> Sweetened non-alcoholic drink, often carbonated

A soft drink is any water-based flavored drink, usually but not necessarily carbonated, and typically including added sweetener. Flavors used can be natural or artificial. The sweetener may be a sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a sugar substitute, or some combination of these. Soft drinks may also contain caffeine, colorings, preservatives and other ingredients.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RC Cola</span> Cola-flavored soft drink

RC Cola is a cola-flavored carbonated beverage owned in the U.S. by U.S. coffee and beverage company Keurig Dr Pepper, and owned outside the U.S. by RC Global Beverages, Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dublin Dr Pepper</span> Popular name for a style of Dr Pepper soft drink

Dublin Dr Pepper is the popular name for a style of Dr Pepper soft drink made by the Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company in Dublin, Texas. Dublin Dr Pepper followed the original recipe, using cane sugar as the sweetener as opposed to newer high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The Dublin plant formula's use of sugar made it popular among soda fans. According to the corporate headquarters at Dr Pepper Snapple Group, this resulted in clashes with other bottlers and the parent company of Dr Pepper. On 12 January 2012, it was announced that the drink will no longer be produced, after the Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company settled the trademark dispute instigated by Dr Pepper Snapple Group. In 2014, the surviving Dublin Bottling Company was the subject of a documentary "Bottled Up: The Battle Over Dublin Dr Pepper" which followed the bottling company as it dealt with the response to the lawsuit and building a new brand without Dr Pepper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barq's</span> Root beer manufactured by The Coca-Cola Company

Barq's is an American brand of root beer created by Edward Barq and bottled since the beginning of the 20th century. It is owned by the Coca-Cola Company. It was known as "Barq's Famous Olde Tyme Root Beer" until 2012. Some of its formulations contain caffeine.

Crush is a brand of carbonated soft drinks owned and marketed internationally by Keurig Dr Pepper, originally created as an orange soda, Orange Crush. Crush competes with Coca-Cola's Fanta. It was created in 1911 by beverage and extract chemist Neil C. Ward. Most flavors of Crush are caffeine-free.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pibb Xtra</span> Soft drink

Pibb Xtra is a reformulation of Mr. Pibb, a soft drink created and marketed by The Coca-Cola Company. It is a kind of pepper soda with several variants.

Jones Soda Co. is a Canadian-American beverage company based in Seattle, Washington, United States. It bottles and distributes soft drinks, non-carbonated beverages, energy drinks, and candy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nehi</span> American flavored soft drink

Nehi is a flavored soft drink that originated in the United States. It was introduced in 1924 by Chero-Cola/Union Bottle Works and founded by Claud A. Hatcher, a Columbus, Georgia, grocer who began bottling ginger ale and root beer in 1905.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shasta (soft drink)</span> American soft drink brand

Shasta Beverages is an American soft drink manufacturer that markets a value-priced soft drink line with a wide variety of soda flavors, as well as a few drink mixers, under the brand name Shasta. The company name is derived from Mount Shasta in northern California and the associated Shasta Springs.

The PoP Shoppe is a soft drink retailer originating in 1969 at London, Ontario, by Gary Shaw in Canada. The PoP Shoppe avoided using traditional retail channels, selling its pop through franchised outlets and its own stores in refillable bottles in 24-cartons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fitz's</span> Brand of soft drink

Fitz's Bottling Company is a regional soda brand in the St. Louis area. The flagship brand is its root beer popularized by its microbrewery and restaurant in University City, Missouri, on the historic Delmar Loop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dr Pepper</span> Carbonated soft drink

Dr Pepper is a carbonated soft drink. It was created in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas, and first served around 1885. Dr Pepper was first nationally marketed in the United States in 1904. It is now also sold in Europe, Asia, North and South America. In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Dr Pepper is sold as an imported good. Variants include Diet Dr Pepper and, beginning in the 2000s, a line of additional flavors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Towne Club</span> Soft drink brand

Towne Club is a local brand of soft drink produced and sold primarily in the metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan. It is also sold in Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Traverse City, Tampa, Florida, Indianapolis, Indiana, Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio at one time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Sky Beverage Company</span> Beverage company

Blue Sky Beverage Company was a beverage company that produced soft drinks and energy drinks. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Monster Beverage Corporation. The company was established in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1980, where it remained until it was purchased by Monster in 2000. Coca-Cola North America took ownership of Blue Sky Sodas, Hansen’s Juice Products, Hansen’s Natural Sodas, Hubert’s Lemonade, Peace Tea and other non-energy drink brands as part of Coke’s partnership with Monster Beverage Corp on Jun 12, 2015. Blue Sky Beverage Company now operates out of Corona, California. The southwestern look and feel of the artwork on the soda cans is reminiscent of the company's roots in New Mexico.

Sun Crest. is a brand of flavored carbonated soft drink manufactured by The Dad's Root Beer Company, LLC. of Jasper, Indiana and owned by Hedinger Brands, LLC, except for 6 countries in Asia owned by The Monarch Beverage Company, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia. Sun Crest Orange is currently available in fountain service and glass bottles in select markets in the U.S.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepsi-Cola Made with Real Sugar</span> Soft drink brand

Pepsi-Cola Made with Real Sugar, originally called Pepsi Throwback and still branded that way in some markets, is a soft drink sold by PepsiCo. The drink is flavored with cane sugar and beet sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, with which soft drink companies replaced sugar in their North American products in the 1980s. In June 2014, the Pepsi Throwback name was replaced by the current name, which continues to be made without high-fructose corn syrup. As of April 2020, it received a new logo. The "throwback" name was also used for a variant of PepsiCo's citrus-flavored Mountain Dew. In early 2024, it was announced that Pepsi-Cola Made with Real Sugar would be rebranded as Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop Made with Real Sugar with new packaging to fit in with the company's Soda Shop series of cane sugar sweetened colas.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Gillis, Sandy; Ganon, Jill Alison (2006). Hometown Pasadena: The Insider's Guide. Pasadena, California: Prospect Park Books. p. 225. ISBN   0-9753939-1-X.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Inside Galco's Soda-Pop Stop, L.A.'s Indie Soda Mecca". PAPER . February 3, 2013. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  3. 1 2 Ryssdal, Kai; Palacios, Daisy (July 6, 2017). "Soda pop gives a family-owned grocery store a new life". Marketplace . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Kaufman, Richard (June 1, 2016). "I will get fat eating retro candy". Boing Boing . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 Rohde, Skye (March 19, 2008). "L.A. Soda Shop Carries All Shapes, Sizes". NPR . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  6. ↑ "The Best of LA: Soda". Los Angeles . 49 (8): 102. August 2004.
  7. 1 2 Rawlings, Arielle (July 21, 2013). "Galco's John Nese & Summer Soda Pop". Hometown Pasadena. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  8. ↑ Stark, Ben (April 6, 2016). "Going against the sugar grain: Will the sugar tax spark a new wave of soft drink innovation?". The Drum. Carnyx Group Limited. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  9. ↑ Fonseca, David (August 9, 2011). "White Rose Blooms at Galco's Soda Pop Stop". Patch . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  10. 1 2 3 "A DIY soda experience, 23 soda samples and the water that Elvis loved…". The Eastsider. July 23, 2013. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  11. ↑ Possert, Nicole (December 13, 2012). "600 Bottles of Beer On The Wall: Highland Park soda pop shop stocks up on cold beer". The Eastsider. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  12. 1 2 Painter, Alysia Gray (July 24, 2013). "A Soda Tasting at the World's Best Soda Shop". KNBC . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  13. ↑ Reitz, Scott (January 17, 2012). "Dr Pepper Boycott Spreads to the West Coast". Dallas Observer . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Soft Drink – Visiting (811)". Huell Howser Archives at Chapman University. December 7, 2016. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
  15. ↑ "Galco's – Visiting (1602)". Huell Howser Archives at Chapman University. November 10, 2017. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
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