Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Hanging Out At The Orange Mall

Anonymous wants to start a discussion on hanging out at the Orange Mall...

Did anyone used to frequent the Orange Mall as a teenager?

I remember some local freak, I think nick named "Jesus". Also the Carl's Jr., Sweats n Surf, pet shop, and Farrell's across the street.
I never hung out there, since I was growing up in Santa Ana. But my wife spent a lot of time there, and when we were dating, she took me there several times. Of course, it was a far cry from South Coast Plaza, which was closer to where I lived.

But my best memory of Orange Mall is watching the movie "Dirty Dancing" there at the theater with my future wife. It was our first date together. I'd guess that was 1987. As a result, she had to pick "I've Had the Time of My Life" as our wedding song.

30 comments:

  1. My friends and I spent most weekends at the Orange Mall. If we had a little money we ate at Carl's Jr. (the restaurant in the Broadway was a place you went with your mom, not your friends). If we didn't have any money we ate Sees suckers (when they were free) and samples from Hickory Farms.

    We used to call the bank of pay phones outside the Orange Mall 6 on Friday and Saturday nights. Our original intent was to make lame prank calls, but our lives were changed forever when a girl answered. From that point on, we'd call to talk to girls, and if a girl didn't answer, we'd beg whomever did answer to hand the phone to a girl.

    There was a glorious anonymity to this transaction. It didn't matter if the girls were older, younger, popular, pretty, ugly. What mattered was that we were 13 and talking to girls, and, more importantly, they were talking to us.

    One Friday night I spent an hour on the phone with a girl named Melinda. We hit it off well enough to agree to meet. The next day, my friends and I walked to her house. She was waiting outside. She was 16, at least a foot taller than I was and at least as socially awkward as I was, if that was possible. We mumbled at each other for maybe five minutes while my friends laughed behind me. Then she went inside and we walked home.

    We'd invited reality into our fantasy and it had been a disaster. Nevertheless, I still think back on the entire episode fondly.

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    1. Im glad to know i was not the only one who did that lol

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  2. We weren't quite teenagers anymore when we moved to Orange in 1967, but we did frequent the Mall a lot. Was the "local freak" you referred to the man who dressed like a throwback to the eighteenth century and carried on a perpetual, seemingly incoherent conversation with himself? He always fascinated us, because he was very neat and clean and seemed as though he was reasonably well off, but was clearly unbalanced in some apparently harmless way.

    Every so often I think about him when I see someone walking along deep in a conversation with no one around them. Of course today, it's just a hands-free cell phone call instead of a sign of mental illness.

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  3. Pedro Yruretagoyena...pyruretagoyena@yahoo.comMay 05, 2009 4:03 PM

    This is a cool blog that i just happened to come across.I didnt get around to that area that i can recall, I grew up on songish st in garden grove, brookhurst and katella area in the 60's through the 80's. Anyone remember fishin at Kids Haven on chapman, ridin bikes in the field behind market basket on brookhurst and katella (later called Shopping Bag and then Fazios), boxing at the stanton gym, eating by the fire pits at Taco Bell on katella and beach or the one on katella near gilbert, levis at Red Eye, Pier 1 Imports, 5 cent scoops at Thrifty's, Al the ice cream man, glazed donuts from the Helms trucks, the burger joint on katella and nutwood (AJ's i think), Orange Julius on katella, A&W on chapman, or the cows in the fields north of katella and nutwood.I wish I could still watch a movie at the Highway 39 Drive In. Wow, some of this stuff I havent thought of until now.....

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  4. I too used to eat at the in and out burger place on south main. It was owned by a nice man named Al. It was on the corner of Cubbon and Main across from the Alpha-Beta grociery store were I worked at the time. He had no affiliation with the burger chain of today.
    When you mentioned Consumer City that really brought back some memories. It was on 1st street west of Fairview. There also was a A+W hamburger place in front of Mater Dei High School. Remember the burger names? Papa burger, Mama burger, and the baby burger.

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  5. The Orange Mall was quite the hang out in the 80's. The movie Theater was behind the mall. My family and I saw: Puff the Magic Dragon, Polergiest I, E.T., and so many more movies there. Hickory Farms, Sees Candy, Hallmark, and the toy stores were fun. I remember an arcade and toy store on the bottom level of Sears. Also, there was a Cracker Barrell reastruant where Red Roobbin is now.
    I really miss those days. And Farrels ice cream across the street was awesome. Many good memories there from the early 80's. Wow, Orange inst as fun as it used to be, but at least the memories live on.

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  6. Whimsy works (now we know they're called churros) right at the middle entrance, some Mexican restaurant and cracker barrel outside, woolworths closing in late 70s and changing into jcpenney, radio shack outside next to the theaters, carls jr, the music store with organs(!), b dalton...

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    1. My first job was at Whimsy Works. Ahhh, the memories!

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  7. Does anyone remember the Parasol Restaurant? It sat on one side of the entrance to the mall and on the other side was a Mexican Restaurant! I think it was La Fiesta, they had the best Taco salad, and the Parasol had great fried chicken.

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    1. Yes, I remember the Parasol Restaurant! I would have NEVER been able to recall the name but I have memories of eating there. Good one!

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    2. I worked at that mexican restaurant as a hostess. Does anyone remember the names of the stores? Wasn't there a Jean Ryan?

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    3. I worked at that mexican restaurant as a hostess. Does anyone remember the names of the stores? Wasn't there a Jean Ryan?

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  8. Yeah,we ate at the Parasol several times. They had some pretty tasty scallops! What I remember about that mall was having gone there in the mid 1970s when I was about 12 and noticed some noise coming from one of the side access halls inside the mall. I walked down this hallway all the way to the end and to my surprise I found a doorway on the right side that opened into a room loaded with pinball machines and other arcade games. There was a small second room with a jukebox where a group of young girls were hanging out smoking and playing 'Harmony' buy Elton John over and over again. This place was cool!! , and if you didn't look for it you wouldn't know it was there. I went back a few years later and just found a locked door to the access hallway and no more arcade.

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  9. Mitch - Floral parkJuly 06, 2010 12:27 PM

    I didn't do a lot of hanging out in the mall itself, but the movie theatre's in the back was a place I could be found at least 3 Saturday's a month back in the 80's.

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  10. Ah the Orange Mall in the 70's was a trip. I remember a long hallway, at the end was a small smoke filled arcade that was dimly lit. I was a "good kid" and my mom let me go hang out at the arcade while she shopped. All the "bad kids" with long hair were there smoking and listening to music on the radio. When my mom set foot in there to try and find me one day... well that was the end of that! Good times. I also remember waiting in line on Sunday morning for concert tickets outside of Sears. There was also a tickettron at Music Plus across the parking lot, but I think Sears had it first. The Orange Mall was awesome.

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    1. I used to hang out in the arcade all the time I would ditch school and walk over to the mall and hang out the arcade and chess king and the weekend nights I would cruise the mall and hang out with the street racers , dose any one remember roman ? Or Wally he would win a bunch of games and then let me play some of them,then there was the pool hall. And how about bob degree. My friends and I would do the Russian hat dance lol those were some of my best days of my life I met my best friend at the movies he use to let me in for free love ya mark

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  11. I remember the Jesus guy who drove the yellow car. Wow...good times. I especially remember those round seats inside the Orange Mall. I stopped hanging out there when my friend, Jackie, was accidentally shot dead there by a fellow classmate of ours in 1989, right in front of CVS. A lot of memories in that place. Good and bad.

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  12. Man o'man, I worked in the Orange Mall @ Flagg Bros. shoes & a g.f. worked @ Regal Shoes. There was a Kinney's (or Thom McAn maybe) too. I haven't been to the Orange Mall in over 20 years, I suspect it's changed! Remember hot nuts from Morrows? Alas, life goes on...

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  13. I grew up here and used to go to the Orange Mall a lot as a child and teenager. I remember the big geometric sculpture that used to sit in the middle of the mall. I'd go to the arcade and toy store in Sears, and remember looking through the Atari 2600 games for sale there. I used to see many movies at the cinema behind The Broadway, too. I remember the mall seemed bigger to me then, but all the store fronts were open--B. Dalton, Hickory Farms, Spencers, Tinderbox, Russo's Pets, and on and on--so it was much more inviting. It's all changed now, with the coming of Wal-Mart and Ross. Trying to rename it "The Village" and putting in some superficial design changes doesn't help. I don't like going there anymore since it just reminds me of how much has been lost to time. Same with The City shopping center...

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  14. I worked at three stores in the mall including a novelty gift shop (a name similar to Gadget Tree) and a trendy clothing store both of which I can't remember their names. I also worked at the men's suit store called Richman Brothers. I was 19 in 1979 and made some decent money on commission selling suits, ties, dress shirts, belts and all the accessories. I had quite a few friends inmost of the store in the mall and generally hung out there even when I wasn't working.

    One of my most vivid memories was going to a party that one of my co-workers from the gift store had. There were quite a few people from the mall there and I remember when they played the Rolling Stones album "Some Girls" everybody in the room began singing along to Mick Jagger.

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  15. I used to cruise to the Orange Mall from Chapman Avenue and always turned around in the Orange Mall to go back to Chapman again. I hung out at the Carl's Jr a lot and really remember their mashed potato fries. I used to watch the midnight showings of the Rocky Horror picture show on Friday and Saturday nights in the late 70's and early 80's.

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  16. Charlene,
    I too remember cruising the Orange Mall on Friday & Saturday nights. I got my license in 1976 and would cruise in my fireball red '68 El Camino around and around and around the mall. Occasionally, I would find someone who wanted to race and so we'd head over to a sidestreet in an industrial area and 'get to it'. It was AWESOME!

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  17. How about the guys that would play the basa nouva organs while you shopped at the Orange Mall. And, how about the fact that the movie theaters were in a seperate building just north of the mall, boy that is where me and my brother and Biegel Butt would ride our bikes from Yorba Linda to see movies. OH I LOVE THE LATE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES..

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  18. I too cruised the orange mall in the late seventies, loud stereos, peeling tires...my sister worked at the chafing dish restaurant inside the Broadway. They sold hotnuts at the broadway I remembered they smelled so good but were terribly expensive. The Carls Jr. was at Katella and tustin? The pizza place next to music plus+ was a good hangout..

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  19. Does anyone remember the candy counter inside of Sears? Whenever we went to Sears we would always ask our parents If we could get something from the candy counter. My favorite was the swedish fish. My brother always got the hot cashews. They had icee's too. I loved the Orange Mall back then. My favorite store was the Red Eye. My mom use to buy alot of clothes for herself at I think it was called Ninas? Good times.

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  20. Hell yeah! The Orange Mall was the place to be in he early eighties. I remember sneaking out of the house and hitting the midnight movies to watch "The Song Remains the Same". There were plenty of girls to meet and bitchin cars to gawk over in the parking lot. I also had friends who worked in the pet store and it was cool to stop by to visit them and play with the dogs and cats. Does anyone remeber a truck clube called "cal toys unlimited"?

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  21. My first job was at Whimsy Works. I was a really good churro maker.

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  22. My first job was at Whimsy Works. I was a really good churro maker.

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  23. Does anyone remember the candy counter inside of Sears? I loved it when my dad would have to go to Sears for some kind of tool or we would go clothe's shopping. My parents would always let us pick something out from the Sears candy counter. I would get the Swedish fish every time. My older brother would get the hot cashews. My sister would get a little bag of Boston baked beans, lol! They also had the best popcorn too! We went to the Orange Mall a lot back in the 80's when the Broadway was there. I think it might be a Walmart now, not too sure since I don't go there anymore.

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  24. I walked to the mall when I was 8 years old on my birthday. Some older kids beat me up and took my birthday money.That is when I changed the way I look at people for ever.I was never the same.By the time I was in jr. high I was a fighter,bully.An A$$.And I never changed.Ever.Now I see what bullying can do.I wish I could do it over . o well.

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