G & F Market

Look down Champa towards 30th Street to where G&F Market used to be on the corner of 30th & Champa.

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TRANSCRIBED INTERVIEW with NANCY DOMOTO + MILTON DOMOTO

NANCY: My mom was already in Colorado, but my dad, he had a produce department in California. He and his buddy had just gotten financing to open a store in California, and then the war broke out. But luckily they had relatives here, so instead of going to a camp, they were able to move inland to Colorado.

But, like everyone was saying, after the war, there was nothing for them to go back to in California. So then they stayed here and then, after a stint as a dental technician or something where he made false teeth and stuff, he got to finally have an opportunity to go back to his first love.

So when I was one, he, with the help of relatives, was able to open a little store. That was on the corner of 30th and Champa, catty corner from Curtis Park. So I was one. Then my mom tells me the story that I used to spend my day, instead of a playpen, inside one of those big Northern tissue boxes.

That was where I stayed behind the counter. We were catty corner from Curtis Park, just across the street from the projects. Then mom and dad had four kids. Oh, and then the name of the store was “G&F Market” – [it] stands for Gladys and Frank.

MILTON: They sold meats and pretty much anything you wanted. You know, canned foods. Because it was right next to the projects, all the kids from the projects would go to their store. They had a pickle jar, a bunch of candy, canned goods; whatever they needed over there. They had really great meat, cuz they had a meat counter, which was good.

NANCY: Later, things changed too, and then when you have a store, it wasn't all peaches and cream for us too. Cuz then we started getting held up and at the end of a gunpoint and stuff like that. I think mom and dad had the store for almost 20 something years. Then they decided maybe it's getting a little too dangerous, so they moved. But it was a good experience down there for us until a little later.