November 14th in Seal Beach History

On this date in 1962, John’s Men Shop ran the following ad ran in the Long Beach Independent. 

John’s Mens Shop was a long-running Long Beach business that opened in 1959 in the Los Altos Shopping Center and lasted into the 1980s with a location in the Marina Pacifica Mall. For a brief time in the early 1960s, John’s Men Shop had a store in Seal Beach at 322 Main Street. It had nothing to do with John’s Food King.

Also, props to the unknown copywriter and artist for finding a way to connect cablegrams with cable sweaters. That’s precisely the sort of whimsical wordplay one would expect from the “home of Tailoring by Umberto.”

ADDENDUM: Thanks to commenter Merle Asper, we know that Umberto is Umberto Autore, who opened Umberto’s Mens Wear across the street from the Los Altos Shopping Center in 1972. The Umberto’s web site leaves John’s Mens Shop out of Autore’s bio, but we’re too obsessive over trivial details about local history to not mention it.)

– Michael Dobkins

---

Have you enjoyed this and other This Date in Seal Beach History posts?

If so, please consider making a small donation of a dollar or more to help defray the online subscriptions and other research costs that make this blog possible.

Donations can be made securely with most major credit cards directly through PayPal. Just click on paypal.me/MichaelDobkins to go to PayPal. Thank you.

This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.