Bayless Store No. 7: Different Cuisines, Same Delicious Food After Nearly a Century
Local favorites Cheba Hut and Tacos Calafia Downtown uphold a culinary legacy at their historic Phoenix location at 825 N. Seventh St.
These Downtown Phoenix restaurants might not realize that the building’s original chef had a notable reputation. “Buy your home-cooked food from Mrs. Knight, ‘It’s cooked right,’” declared a 1928 ad in The Arizona Republican newspaper, now known as The Arizona Republic.
Mrs. Knight was the delicatessen chef at the supermarket called Bayless Store #7, whose ghost sign remains on the building’s south wall. It has been 97 years since she introduced dishes like salads, Boston baked beans, egg noodles with chicken, baked ham, roast pork, fresh pickled beets, lima beans, chicken or beef pot pie, cakes, and pies. Since Mrs. Knight last managed the kitchen, this elegant red-brick building has housed many tenants and gone through several renovations, yet it still preserves a sense of what life was like in Phoenix in the Roaring ‘20s.
On March 24, 1928, Phoenix residents awoke to a new paradigm in grocery sales and food preparation. “Seventh of Bayless Chain Grocery Stores Opens Today,” declared the Republic’s front-page headline. “Investment of $60,000 Put in Establishment.” The 8,000-square-foot building, located in what is now known as the Garfield Historic District, was the largest grocery store in the city, with 50 parking spaces for customers. The store’s pale green and cream-colored interior featured “serve yourself” grocery, meat, and produce departments, along with a delicatessen and soda fountain that stayed open until 11 p.m.
Opening day featured food samples and a free ¼-pound bag of Maxwell House tea for customers, as well as carnations for ladies. The first 200 women received a complimentary Kerr wide-mouth fruit jar. “The only ice used at all in the store is that which is cracked for iced drinks,” stated the Republic, a sly way of saying the latest Frigidaire cooling system, the largest in Arizona, was used to keep products cold, not old-fashioned iceboxes.
Featured food included locally milled Arizona Star flour, Hurley meats, Central Avenue Dairy products, Holsum pasta, Sanichas candy, Arnold’s pickles, Donofrio’s ice cream, along with other labels like Ben-Hur coffee and Hollywood Dry pale ginger ale.
J.B. Bayless opened his first eponymous grocery store in Phoenix in 1923, although the Tennessee native had been in retail since 1895. After opening store No. 7 in 1928, he absorbed the Arizona Piggly Wiggly chain the following year. Later that same year, he sold his 18 stores to Mac Marr stores shortly before the stock market crash.
Over the years, the building evolved from a Pay’n Takit supermarket in the 1930s to Upton’s Ice Cream Co. in the 1940s and Al’s, a used furniture and appliance outfit. From 1975 to 1991, the building housed Jack Austin’s ABC Theatricals, which sold and rented costumes.
Today, Cheba Hut describes itself as “A feast spot for all sun-spotted heathens, nerds, musicians, collectors, and all weirdos of all types.” Meanwhile, Tacos Calafia Downtown attracts customers with its impressive self-serve salsa and guacamole bar. Both venues feature high ceilings that expose the building’s wooden rafters and tasty food that honors the kitchen wizardry of its original cook, Mrs. Knight.
Douglas C. Towne is the editor of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine, www.arizcc.com