I was driving around this morning in search of a cup of Joe when I went past Tacoma’s Bartending Academy at 1036 South Sprague Avenue, Tacoma. I like the way the light reflects on the wet street. The architect for the 1907 building was C.E. Heath. It was originally built as a store (don’t know what type) and for sometime in the 1940s it was the Thoralf Hagen Barber Shop and now it is the Bartending Academy.
There are all the school buses just waiting for the first day of school 🙂 This photo was in the Nalley Valley part of town at the southwest corner of South Tacoma Way and Sprague Avenue. I could only safely capture some of the buses, but the image below (thank you Google Earth!) shows that there are many more buses. I think there is a special star in heaven for school bus drivers!
I’ve been wanting to snap a photo of the old Wonderbread Building at the corner of Sprague Avenue and South 7th (703 South Sprague) for ages The property began life as the Matthaei Bread Company in 1913 at a cost of $30,000. The formal opening was in April 1913 and it was known as the plant of 150 windows.
The parent company, Interstate Bakeries Corp, went bankrupt in 2004 and this outlet closed. As of 2007 the property was up for sale, but it has been sitting vacant for ages now. An article in the Weekly Volcano mentions a proposed demolition of the building with a new retail/office facility, but it has been a couple of years and I see no evidence of new development. http://www.weeklyvolcano.com/entertainment/spew-blog/2010/05/tacoma-wonder-bread-building-demolition/
A picture of the building from the 1920s can be found here http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/buildings/bldg1image.asp?j=1&o=2&n=25402&i=6392#text
At the corner of Sprague and Division ( 2006 Sixth Avenue, Tacoma WA 98403) there is a A&W.KFC Co-Branded fast food restaurant. The A&W part is one of three A&W locations in Tacoma. All are co-branded with KFC. In fact we now have to drive 20 miles to Port Orchard to find a stand alone A&W. I wonder if it is the drive up kind.here are six KFCs with a Tacoma address, which includes the three just mentioned.
Per Wikipedia, both KFC and A&W had been owned by Yum! until recently and that “Most A&W stores that opened in the U.S. in recent years were co-branded with another of Yum!’s chains— Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell or Kentucky Fried Chicken. On December 19, 2011, A&W and Long John Silver were sold to A Great American Brand LLC.
Dear husband said he’d be happy to show me a splendid new place of the day and he took me here to South Tacoma Way and Sprague where they are tearing down the old Nally Valley overpass and have constructed the new one. This scene will not be here long! Husband and I agreed that it was very post apocalyptic. And nothing says Christmas Eve like Post Apocalyptic!
There are two fast food places in Tacoma that I would travel to if I really had a craving for a burger and one of them is Legendz at 1201 South Sprague. It is exclusively a drive through with no indoor seating, though there are a couple of tables on the side of the building. For fast food, it is slow. That’s because they are actually waiting until one orders to make it. The burgers are really big and very tasty and thankfully they don’t publish the calorie count! Dear daughter had the fish burger and said it was also really good.
This morning I’m driving around looking for a cup of coffee because it is that kind of day when I notice that there is an ACE hardware on Sprague. Where did that come from? My husband said that it use to be a lawn mower store and maybe it still is to a point because the secondary sign said Agrishop (see link http://www.agrishopinc.com/) and they seem to have lawnmowers and more. It is a small hardware store and a nice alternative to the megastore. Not that ACE isn’t a big chain. Their website says they have more than 4,600 stores in 50 states and 70 countries! There are 30 ACE locations within 30 miles of this one! Who knew?
Â
Â
AGRISHOP TACOMA
2012 S 12th St.
Tacoma, WA 98405
Â
phone: (253) 833-0870
toll free: (800) 805-0513
And yes, I did take some photos of it! And they are happily living on my camera’s memory chip. But the memory chip and the laptop had words and now they aren’t talking! So I tried rebooting (no), I tried taking the chip in and out a dozen times (no), I found one of those cords that connects the camera & the computer (no), I tried all the same things on my husband’s computer (no, no, no), I considered throwing the computer in the bay (maybe). I gave up and used an image off the internet and will try at work tomorrow using their computer (yes).
In the meantime, here is a photo I took with my phone!
Â
