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Home || Ministries & Organizations || Our History || Calendar || Contact Us || Donations Harry Kockos Autobiography - Chapter 3 Kockos Introduction || <--Go to Chapter 2 || -->Go to Chapter 4 My brother Andrew was here from Greece and we took down the sign that read "Anton and Kockos" and repainted the same sign, "Kockos Bros." The name Kockos Bros." is still in existence today and I'm proud to say that I am the father of the business. We closed the store on Buchanan and Chestnut and rented another building on Lombard and Pierce, near the Presidio. At our new location, we did business with a few of the officers from the Presidio, as well as many of our regular customers. Evidently, one of the officers, Lt. Montgomery, liked me and asked me if I could put in a bid for the meat contract at the Presidio. I told him that I certainly could and when the bids opened up the next month I succeeded in getting the Presidio contract for one year. However, before the contract had terminated, Lt. Montgomery had left for Honolulu and we failed to renew the order for a second year. At the time, between meats and groceries, we had made several thousand dollars profit. This was deposited in the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank. One day, a salesman from the Haas Bros. wholesale grocery firm, came into the store as usual. He advised me that sugar prices would be going up so it would be smart to buy a few extra bags. Dealing with other salesmen, I knew that Haas Bros. had a good reputation; I took it for granted that this man was right and told him to book me for 1000 bags. He started laughing, saying that he had only been trying to sell me ten extra bags. I told him not to worry about what I would do with the sugar -- all he needed was the money and we had the money to pay. He called his office and asked if he could take such a large order and they replied that if Kockos Bros. had the cash, they couldn't see why he shouldn't. And within the next few days the sugar prices went up fifty cents. While I had been dealing with the other salesman, my brother Andrew had been crying with worry -- what were we going to do with so much sugar? I told him not to worry or cry -- from this day forward we were in the wholesale grocery business. The market had gotten to small for me. I told my brother to watch the business while I took the horse and buggy and went out to look for orders among some restuarant operators. On my first stop, a little hamburger stand on Pacific Street. I found a Greek fellow who must have weighed about 300 lbs. I told this Mr. Leonadus that I represented Kockos Bros. Wholesale Grocers. He gave me an order for two boiled hams, one sack of sugar, and a case of eggs. I thanked him very much and told him that the order would be delivered within two days. The next call I made was at a big restuarant on Kearny Street. I found a man at the cash register and told him that I represented Kockos Bros. Wholesale Grocers and that I would like to talk to the boss. This gentleman, Mr. Alec Cadas, said that he was the boss and then asked who the Kockos Bros. were. I replied that I represented my uncle and his brother who lived in Oakland. Mr. Cadas also wanted to know if this Mr. Kockos had enough money to run a wholesale grocery business. I told him that my uncle was a very rich man. Now he wanted to meet him! But at the same time, he gave me an order for three sacks of sugar, two cases of eggs, twenty pounds of rice, and one fifty pound can of compound lard. My next stop on Kearny was the "Splendid Restuarant." I went directly into the kitchen and talked to a fellow by the name of Harry, telling him about my rich uncle in Oakland. He was certainly surprised to hear that there was a Greek wholesale grocery house in existence; he wanted to meet my uncle too! But he gave me a nice order and I thanked him and left. Extremely happy, I went back to the store and showed the orders to my brother. He was laughing because I had been so successful in only a couple of hours. In fact he asked me why I had returned so early. There were two reasons: three orders filled our small horse and buggy and we also had to order the merchandise which we didn't have in stock. But I told Andrew that I would stay in the store tomorrow and that he could go out and see what he could do. Since there were a lot of restuarants on Geary Blvd. and on Clement St., I told my brother to check out that area. However, he came back with about half the orders I had had. Meanwhile, I had ordered ten cases of eggs and some other things that we needed, so my orders were ready to be delivered. Our driver, Mr. Turner, delivered all of our orders that same day. The following day I covered 3rd and 4th streets. On Howard, I found some Greek/American restuarants where they were selling oatmeal mush and coffee for $.05/lb. Everything else was also being sold at such an unbelievably low price. The order that one fellow gave me, five bags of oatmeal mush and some other merchandise, was just too much for our little wagon. When I returned to the store my brother was shocked at the order and then started to laugh because he knew the wagon would break down. We put the entire order on the wagon anyway and a few minutes later we received a telephone call from Mr. Turner -- the wagon had broken down on Van Ness and Lombard. We immediately called a wagon company and were able to deliver the merchandise in a rented vehicle. We lost no time in purchasing a three ton wagon from Studebaker Co. We had been operating both our retail and wholesale businesses from the retail store on Lombard and Pierce -- but the place was just too small to handle both operations. I started looking around the wholesale district for a better location and I found a store at 348 Davis St. that had a full basement and an elevator. It was 175 feet by fifty feet. A few days after renting the place we moved all the merchandise from the rear of our retail store to the new location. However, we kept the shelves of our grocery store stocked and hired two men to run the store while Andrew and I worked the wholesale house. The wholesale business was growing bigger and bigger. A few examples: 1) The sugar that we had ordered from Haas Bros. began to come in so fast that it blocked a few of the stores that were next to us; we immediately hired six men to carry the sugar inside. 2) A few blocks below our location was the Rath Blum Packing Co. I noticed that they had about 100 fifty pound cans of compound lard and I asked them how much they wanted for the entire stock. Giving me a bargain deal, about 40% below the normal selling price, they delivered the order a few days thereafter. 3) A Mr. Silver, representing the California Canning Co., contacted me to show me a sample, one gallon can of tomato pulp. Since I found it to be of good quality, I asked the saleman what his price was. His price was too much for me, so I asked Mr. Silver what he would charge me if I bought the entire stock of 2000 cases (There are a dozen cans/case). He immediately called up his office and talked to his boss, Mr. Jacobs, who asked if we could pay cash for the entire order. But he accepted my price and I gave Mr. Silvers a $1000 deposit; I would pay for the balance when I received the entire shipment. Within a few days the order had been completely delivered -- cases of tomato pulp filled the sidewalk. But I wasn't worried about selling it because at that time restuarants were using large quantities of tomato pulp, boiled hams, eggs, and sugar. In fact, I immediately sold 200 cases. The J.H. Newbar Co. wholesale grocery house was located about two blocks below us on Davis and Pacific. And everyday at noontime Mr. Newbar himself walked by our store on his way to lunch (He ate on California St.). Passing by, he noticed all the cases of tomato pulp on the sidewalk and came in the office to see if I wanted to sell some. I immediately opened up a can and Mr. Newbar loved the merchandise. It truly was excellent stuff. I sold him 200 cases for $1.50 over and above what I had paid, telling him that he would have to pick up the order. He said that he surely would and in a couple of days he sent his wagons to pick up the merchandise. At that time, there were two Greek boys, the Sarantides brothers, who were also selling to the restuarant operators. But because our prices were far below theirs, they were losing practically all of their business. They were pretty sore at us. One day, the younger boy, George, met me at a restuarant on Golden Gate St. I saw him take a knife from the restuarant -- he wanted to kill me! I ran out of the restuarant and kept running. He followed me for about half a block, but he wasn't able to catch up. He was a big fellow who weighed over 200 lbs. and I was a lot smaller and faster; I only weighed about 150 lbs. A few days thereafter, his older brother, Gus, came to my office and apologized for the attitude that his brother had taken. When he told me that he'd like to do business with us, I said that I was willing to give him a price that was much lower than he could find anyplace else. He gave me an order that was big enough to fill up his buggy, and at the same time I told him that we were now doing most of our business with grocery stores -- we weren't going to bother as much with restuarants. Thereafter, they did practically all of their business with us and we became good friends. After a year or so, our store at 348 Davis had become inadequate for our business and I was looking for a new location. I found a three story building on 46 California St. The owner, Mr. Blum, offered me a very low price and so we moved our merchandise from 348 Davis to 46 California. At the same time, we sold our retail grocery business for a few thousand dollars. During the first few years in the wholesale grocery business, we could not buy sugar directly from the manufacturers. And we were buying large quantities; for example, we purchased thousands of sacks of Spreckles sugar each month. Frequently, the sugar would be stacked on the sidewalk, blocking the entrance of the building where Mr. Clause Spreckles had his office. When this happened, I would clear the doorway and always excuse myself. But one day, I decided to see why I couldn't buy sugar directly from the manufacturer. I went upstairs to Mr. Spreckles' office and gave my business card to his secretary, saying that I had some very important business to discuss with Mr. Spreckles. He told his secretary that I could come in. When I went into his office, I introduced myself and said, "My name is Harry Kockos of Kockos Bros. next door. We have been in the wholesale grocery business for many years and we cannot buy sugar directly from the manufacturer. Today, I decided to come into the Supreme Court to see the owner of the Spreckles sugar refinery. I want to determine the problem with Kockos Bros. that prevents us from buying directly. We have to buy outside the manufacturer and thus pay a certain premium." Mr. Spreckles got up from his chair and put his hand on my shoulder, saying, "My son, you will hear from us within a day or so." Kockos Introduction || <--Go to Chapter 2 || -->Go to Chapter 4 |