1930s San Diego - Queen Beach Cafe, any information? (Sacramento: home, living)

[copper88]

Doing some work on a family tree and I have record of a deceased family member being a musician at the Queen Beach Cafe. His family was living at 634 North 30th Street in San Diego at the time so I wondered if anybody remembers or knows about this place (if it was even in San Diego?).

I know this is a real long shot. The place where their home once stood is now the SDG&E Grant Hill Electrical Substation.

Thanks in advance in anybody can help!

[Fran66]

You don't say where you live. If you live in CA, I'd contact the newspaper. The San Diego Union has articles as far back as 1871. Also, you could contact the main library and ask them how to go about researching this. Also, contact the city office that issues business licenses. Maybe it can help.

It's not a major problem that you don't know if the Queen Beach Café was in San Diego. But the only way I can think of, to find out whether or not it was in San Diego, is to do some research.

Wish I could be of more help.

[Fran66]

I meant, I'd contact the newspaper library in person. (You can contact the newspaper library by phone from anywhere. Duh. LOL

[cruitr]

Ken Kramer does a TV show where he highlights the history of San Diego. The TV show is called "About San Diego." Here's the website: Ken Kramer TV

Looks like he takes questions at this website or his Facebook page.

[Think4Yourself]

You could check a reverse phone directory search for the name of the business.

[copper88]

Thank you all for replies. Will see if UC Davis or Sacramento County Library system has San Diego Union on microfiche (just have to get time off of work to make a day of it) and will check out the Kramer page. Even with all the online information available now, this family tree research is time consuming! Fascinating and fun but takes forever if you can't do it full time.

[Think4Yourself]

Dude, if you go to the county records office off of Kearney Villa Rd you can use their automated system to check their historical records. This is called a reverse telephone list; it provides three items of information the business's name, the address, and the telephone. It doesn't matter if the business is defunct because as long as the business ever had a telephone number it will be listed in the data base. That means even if the business has been gone for 80 years you can type in the name and get both its old address and its old phone number. Obviously, you only care about the address part but that's how you do the search.

People who do phase 1 and phase 2 environmental investigations use it all the time. Typically they want to research and address and then find out what businesses have historically be at that address but since you only know the name of the business you would input that to get the address.