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it was a Vons owned chain...it was supposed to cater to ethnic foods....mainly latin...dont remember how long it lasted tho...it was a good concept but wasnt needed back then...now that all this ethnic food markets are poping up everywhere, i think its time they bring it back!!

i remember the one in downy. i went there with my parents for water and supplies in 1994 when we had the big northridge earthquake. its sad how we dont plan ahead for these things...lol..there was nothing left int he store when we got there!

It was Tiangus. I remember that they were listed on the back of my old Pavilions Value Plus (aka Vons Club) card.

Bill Davila, who was the president of Vons and appeared in the Vons commercials, also did the Tiangus ads on Spanish-language TV.

lol...i knew i was spelling it wrong! i remember the vons ads with him but not the tiangus....does your pavilions value plus card look the same as they do now...?? do u know what happened to the chain...?? did it not do as good as they thought it would...?

Failed concept.

They turned most the stores into Vons, but kept the ethnicity in the store (think of a Food for Less looking store with Tortillarias and a butcher in the carneceria, even though it was not any different than a regular butcher shop). Some closed permanently, like Montebello's Tianguis.

Many of those Vons were utimately closed. Two (Montebello and East LA) became Superior Food.

Tiangus opened in 1986 i think in Montebello, then Boy's Market followed with the Viva store. The concept didn't work back then, but it would now. I also believed the Tiangus stores were converted Vons stores. I don't think they were built from scratch.

The Tianguis stores initially did very well, but during a labor protest relating to grapes Vons made the decision to have Ceasar Chavez arrested at one of the stores (in Highland Park if I remember correctly). The publicity in the Spanish media was very bad and sales started falling rapidly and they gave up on the format a couple years later. Some were closed outright and some were converted to Vons.

klkla wrote:The Tianguis stores initially did very well, but during a labor protest relating to grapes Vons made the decision to have Ceasar Chavez arrested at one of the stores (in Highland Park if I remember correctly). The publicity in the Spanish media was very bad and sales started falling rapidly and they gave up on the format a couple years later. Some were closed outright and some were converted to Vons.

And some were converted to Expo, that failed soon after. The old Expo in Victorville, CA (previously a Phar Mor) sat vacant for many years and is now a Hispanic market. The Tiangus idea may have been ahead of its time, now that Hispanic stores have really taken off in California.

There was a Tianguis in San Fernando that was originally a Safeway and became a Vons for a short time before Tianguis.

I vaguely remember a Tianguis on Peck near Valley in El Monte, and perhaps also in the Baldwin Park Towne Center.

When I moved to the San Gabriel Valley in 1987, there was a Pantry Market near my house. I believe they were also owned by Vons, as were Williams Bros., a chain from the Central Coast area.

Whats funny is that Tianguis after it closed became a Kmart, and recently a Sears Essientials.

The Baldwin Park town Center was a Pavillions, later Vons, then the entire center torn down for a Home Depot.

I frequented the Montebello location often. As going to VONS today for a sandwich...Tianguis made burritos (et al) with fresh tortillas made on-site. Great lunch time!

Tinaguis was the Hispanic "Pavilions" for Vons. When I called on them at the El Monte Store, the margins they demanded were at the same level as Pavilions. Out to make the buck.....and screw the consumer. At the time...the "new" Hispanic Consumer. If they only knew.....lol

Superior Super Warehouse has 4 of the old Tianguis Stores 3 of them were opened by Superior in 1995, their first growth spurt, Cudahy (Atlantic & Florence), Montebello on Whittier Blvd, Huntington Park (Pacific & Belgrave) and a few years later East LA/Boyle Heights area on Cesar Chavez. My understanding is that the then President/CEO of Vons Bill Davilla opened these stores to cater to "his people". He was often seen in the stores especially the one in Cudahy on Sundays dropping by for menudo. Superior hired quite a few of their former employees and they stated the problem was that when the division was started, they had separate operations for supervision, hiring, buying, etc. and then Vons management absorbed operations into Vons and esentially lost business because the stores became a Vons in disguise especially with the pricing going up and selection which less reflected what the latino shoppers wanted to buy.