A Day at Lakeside Marketeria

From time to time on the various FB groups there will be a mention or a photo of Bill Hill and Lakeside Marketeria . It will be accompanied by a comment on how much they miss the store, buying an ice cream or that their parents used to shop in the store.

Wendy and I will frequently come to Bronte in the morning, grab a coffee and head down to the pier and use one of the iconic chairs to enjoy the morning air, activity and the view. Just being in the area will spark a memory; one of which spawned this idea for a blog post.

I thought it might be interesting to provide a glimpse into a day working in the store. Like most kids, particularly the boys, you started off bagging groceries and helping people to their cars, cleaning floors and stocking shelves. After some time, you did get an opportunity to "specialize". Some worked in the meat department, others filling orders, cashiers or running a particular part of the store, for example dairy and cheese.

Once you got your licence, a sought after job was deliveries. At 17 I had my chauffeurs licence which allowed me to drive one of the vans and do deliveries. Through high school, I would work at the store, but in the summers, I worked 2 jobs. In the evenings and the weekends in the store and during the day a summer job elsewhere in Oakville. Over the years I worked for a painter, a bus boy in the Ford Truck Plant, on the line in the Car Plant, grounds maintenance at the head office and at the Shell Research Centre. One summer I worked at the Xerox Toner Plant on North Service.

I worked full time in the store during the Summers starting when I moved on to university.

Bill was incredibly generous and flexible, so I had the freedom to show up at the store when ever I had time and go to work. This was important, as I was living on my own, and had rent, tuition, books and other expenses.

In the summer, I would meet him at the store early and we would head down to where the fruit and vegetables were sold. He would tear the lid off a box and begin writing a list of produce we needed, reviewing each item with me. After, it would be off to the store room where another list was prepared. He would reach into his pocket and pull out a massive wad of bills wrapped in an elastic from which he would peel off up to a thousand dollars.

I would leave the store and head to the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto and make the rounds to the various suppliers filling the order. I would then head over to Windermere and the Queensway to McIntyres, a wholesaler, to pick up the other part of the load; usually canned goods.

With the truck groaning under heavy load, it would be a slow drive along the QEW back to the store. I would pull up front and most times Bill will be there to help unload and to restock the fruit and vegetables.

Today, people are used to the delivery services provided by the large grocery chains. They are a common sight in our neighbourhood. The vehicles are climate controlled and the process of ordering can be done off a simple computer or telephone app.

Lakeside was 50 and even 60 years ahead of this service. Bill had a small area with 3 or 4 phones. Staff were there to receive calls and take detailed orders. Additional staff (pickers) would prowl the store finding the items and loading them into a grocery cart. When the orders were filled they were run through a dedicated cash register and loaded into boxes.

By late morning the first load of between 20 and 25 orders would be ready to go. I would have a clipboard of the name, address and value of the order annotated with the number of boxes. The Lakeside truck fleet (3) were early Ford Econoline vans; an upgrade from early Volkswagens. They were not equiped with any refrigeration. So frozen foods were kept in a separate box, essentially keeping each other cold. To increase capacity, a crude wooden shelf was built to size in the van to provide additional space for orders. It wasn't until 1966 or 67 we were able to convince Bill to put a radio in the vehicle.

In terms of Lakeside's service area I had customers throughout Oakville and as far east as Winston Churchill Blvd. We would cover residential areas north and south of the QEW. Bill was never one to turn down business. I used to deliver to one lady in Mississauga, not far from where Erin Mills Centre is today. Lakeside's customers were not limited to Oakville and we had a large number in Burlington. We even had one customer on Spring Garden Road which is out by the RBG.

A normal load would take between 2 and 3 hours to deliver. It was non stop. To this day I don't ever remember the trucks being pulled off the road in bad weather. I have delivered in major snow, ice, rain and wind storms. The worst possible driving conditions. But somehow we would get through. I can't tell you how many nights I would pull into someone's home at 10 or 11 pm, dropping off the last order. Back then Winters were colder, had more snow and the weather such as freezing rain and high winds not uncommon. Roads were sometimes a foot deep in snow and coated in ice.

Back in the 1960s an average order was between $20-30 dollars. Most people paid cash, some cheques and a few were allowed to charge. On a busy Saturday, I could be on the road for 10 or 12 hours and delivered to over 100 homes. That would mean I would have over $1000 in cash, which was a lot of money back in those days. At the end of the day, having finished the delivers, work was not over.

I would have to climb a set of old rickety wooden stairs to a makeshift office in the storage area. Even though it would be 10 or 11 pm, Mrs. Hill (Bill's mom) would be waiting. I would then have to cash out and balance my delivery sheet. At that time Mrs. Hill was in her late 80s and we would work together with using a very old style adding machine.

Regardless of the weather, I was usually dressed in a light jacket and running shoes. You were in an out of the truck. We had a number of customers in apartment buildings. There would be multiple orders in the same building. We had a process of getting the boxes into the breeze way, buzzing to get in, moving the boxes again, then on to the elevator. Sometimes you had to off load all the orders, do that particular floor and then reload and move on to the next one. As a result heavy coats and boots just slowed you down. You had to be fit and strong to do this job and so you worked through some of the worst weather and surprisingly you were never cold.

Being in my teens with all the work you were hungry. After delivering a load in the late afternoon or evening, I would stop at McDonalds on Lakeshore and pick up a bag of hamburgers, they were maybe 20 cents at the time. You go to the drive thru, get back on the road and eat on the way back to the store. If you did have a bit of time, I loved to stop into the old Rendezvous KFC on South Service Road, near what is the Mercedes Benz dealer today. They had a great burger and of course chicken.

Rattling around in the truck after each load delivery were returns of glass pop bottles and those old white plastic milk jugs. These would have to be off loaded in what we called the bottle shed. Bill would usually have one of the new workers periodically go out to the shed to organize the bottles for pick up. A bit of a nasty job; especially in the winter.

Doing deliveries in hind sight was a bit of an education in life. Not only did you have to learn to be organized, selecting the most efficient route for deliveries, but provide customer service, accounting and so much more. And you got to see life.

I delivered to some of the richest people in Canada and some of the poorest. The Baillies, Hindmarshes/Atkinsons and Gardiners were regular deliveries. I also would deliver to the Oakville Club and the Oakville Golf and Country Club.

In the summer when I delivered to the Hindmarsh estate (they owned the Toronto Star) Mrs Atkinson would greet me and always have a cold glass of lemonade and time for a chat. From there I could be off to the old Oakville House and Lakeshore and Navy. The upstairs rooms were rented to people who had problems or were down on their luck. The order might have been bread, ham and some soup. They would have a bed, chair and hot plate and not much more. To this day when I walk by the corner of Lakeshore and Navy my memory is of the smell of sweat, cigarette smoke, beer and much worse. From there it could be off to the Gardiner Estate, what is Gairlock Gardens today. Mr Gardiner would meet me at the door and there was always time for a chat.

In the Fall and Winter, I would usually have Monday morning free when I was at McMaster. On those occasions I would head into the store after a quick breakfast of coffee and toast at the Crossroads Restaurant. I would meet up with Bill and he would pull together an order for ED Smith Jams in Winona. Back then the Skyway had toll booths with the cost of 10 cents in each direction. Again, I would get the load, head back to the store and leave the truck outside to be unloaded by students when they came to work. My day was not over as I headed to classes back in Hamilton.

During the week deliveries were less, so other responsibilities came in to play. Bill owned or used a number of old sheds or houses as storage areas. One was beside Alec Chalmers barber shop, another on Marine Drive near Jones Street known as the Hickson House. These were used to store paper goods.

Every late October, maybe early November, Bill would order a rail car load of potatoes from PEI. The car would be left at the Bronte siding. I was still in high school and along would my friend Gary Welna, we would skip school to unload the car. We would start early. The rail car was loaded with the 10 lb bags in the centre and then 25, 50s and 75 lb burlaps. One of us would be in the rail car the other in the van. We would fill the van and head down to the store. This was a long day and normally we would not get to the heavy bags until late. The larger bags would be stored in the basement of Bill's house, what we know as Glendella today. It was the perfect cold storage. The stone walls, dirt floor and very small windows. We would use a narrow plywood slide through the basement window. One of us stacking in the basement, the other in the truck. As usual Bill would be there to help. By 11 pm we would be exhausted and covered in sweat and that red PEI soil.

Working in the summer, weekends and evenings, there were usually 2 or 3 of us on the road; ,myself, Gary Welna and Terry Houghton, all friends and Bronte Boys.

While we worked hard, we had fun and certainly got into our fair share of mischief. There are some great stories from that time. They include the large boxes of Cold Water All dumped into the old Cities Service/Shell Fountain and the "borrowing" of one of those flashing light construction signs. Gary thought it would be fun to have in his bedroom. The problem was we could never figure out how to turn off the yellow light. It was flashing away in the truck so it was coats off to cover it. The problem was even worse in his bedroom.

After bugging Bill to get a new truck with a radio, one finally arrived. It was larger than our other models. One of our customers used to leave the garage door open so we could back in and bring the groceries to a door directly into the kitchen. Not accounting for the new height of the truck, there was a crash and down came the garage door. Not surprisingly the homeowner was not impressed. But being confident we assured her we could fix it. It seem to work, but that evening it came down again on her husband's car. I thought our "careers" at Lakeside were over when we saw them in the store talking to Bill the next day. We were certain that Bill would think the radio was a distraction and the cause of the "accident". Bill reached into his pocket and pulled out that roll of bills, peeled a number off to the couple and they were gone. At no time did Bill ever say a word to us....which simply speaks to who he was as a person.

Another delivery was on Henderson Road north of Palermo. This was in the country. We would get the Ford Econoline up to 80 or 90 mph on Hwy 25 and the doors would rattle and the noise of the engine straining was so loud. On the return we could come down Third Line which had an underpass for the QEW. If you down shifted at the right time and held the clutch in; the engine would backfire...remember we were kids. The challenge was to time the backfire in the underpass to get a very satisfying bang and echo. On one occasion, it was so loud, it blew the muffler off the truck. So it was off to Len Hall a mechanic on Bronte Road who was the go to guy to keep the Lakeside fleet running. Again, never a word from Bill.

To say we had some interesting customers is an understatement. On in particular remains in my memory. Miss. Rose on Gloucester Ave (just east of downtown). She had a regular order, albeit small, that use to be delivered on Saturday morning...as early as possible. Who took her order was always a subject of a bit of an argument between, Gary, myself and Terry. While we all wanted to get out early to do deliveries (we didn't like working in the store) Mrs. Rose was a problem. I took order her last week, no it is your turn! Miss Rose was in at least her 60s and she like to party on Friday nights. On more than one occasion we would knock on the door and yell Lakeside (our usual greeting for customers). When the door opened on more than one occasion, Miss Rose would be a little worse for wear (still drunk or hung over) and would appear with either nothing on or very little. Not a pleasant sight, even for young boys of 17 or 18.

Sitting back on those chairs on the pier, talking with Wendy about those memories the smell of an early morning lake breeze floated in. As we walked back to the car I could visualize Bill standing out front of the store, greeting people and helping me unload the truck when I returned from Toronto.