GROW To Close After 19 Years in Manhattan Beach
Jul 18, 2024 06:13PM ● By Jeanne Fratello
Kathy and Barry Fisher, owners of GROW (photo via GROW South Bay)
GROW Began With Cherry Stand
The story of GROW began with a simple cherry stand.
The Fishers had run a produce export company in the Central Valley before moving to the South Bay in 2003. When their son wanted to earn money for a boogie board, he opened a
curbside cherry stand in Manhattan Beach, selling cherries from one of the family's grower
friends in Lodi. The cherries were so popular that the Fishers began
receiving notes in their mailbox from neighbors asking when they could
get more cherries.
The family opened GROW on Sepulveda Blvd. in
September 2006, as a way to bring grower-fresh produce to the South Bay.
GROW later expanded its offerings to include specialty groceries
and a delivery service, with brightly colored delivery vans
that had become a familiar sight around the South Bay.
Having educated its
customers about the best produce available, it developed a devoted
following of fruit and vegetable connoisseurs who learned to ask for specific
varieties - and even specific farms - by name.
Most notably, GROW was the first store in America to carry Sumo mandarins - the popular extra-large and extra-sweet citrus fruit with a distinctive top knot - as the Sumo season began.
GROW was also locally famous for its annual Pumpkin Guess-A-Roo contest, asking kids to guess the weight of a giant pumpkin trucked in from a farm. (Fisher's favorite guess was from a kid who measured the height of the pumpkin fist-over-fist from the bottom to the top, and then after reaching 32 "fists" high, declared that since his fist weighed one pound, the pumpkin must weigh 32 pounds. "I wanted to load it into his car that second," remembered Fisher.)
GROW had come close to closing just before the pandemic due to competition from larger grocery stores. But with peoples' desire for an "intimate" shopping experience, compared to massive grocery stores, suddenly GROW was booming again.
Nevertheless, in the last year, GROW has once again been challenged by the resurgence of larger grocery stores.
"It's kind of fitting that as the U.S. cherry season comes to an end... we do, too," said Fisher.