K&B Number 5 was the store at St. Charles and Broadway.
K&B Number 5
Ad in the Times-Picayune, 4-August-1928, announcing the opening of K&B Number 5, the store at St. Charles Avenue at Broadway. The ad features a drawing of the new store as well as the previous four locations.
From the ad:
You’re Welcome Today — and Every Day at K&B No. 5–and at every K&B Store! Today! Meet the folks who will be pleased to serve you. The K&B spirit of Service and the K&B standard of quality–ONLY THE BEST–which has been part and parcel of the success of this institution since 1905–the very beginning, dominates this store like it pervades each other K&B Store! We’ll be glad to see you and serve you today and every day thereafter!
The ad promoted Whitman’s candy, and a “Dandy Bag of Useful Miniatures” given to customers who made a fifty-sent purchase.
The store
Store number 5, St. Charles and Broadway
K&B Number 5 serviced the university district. While there were other, larger, stores in the chain, K&B was all about making it easy to pick up your prescriptions. The store included a soda fountain, featuring “Freshly made sandwiches of the best the market affords.”
Previous stores
Store No. 1, 732 Canal Street
Katz and Besthoff opened their first store at 732 Canal Street, across from the Touro Buildings. While this was a popular location (pick up things then jump on the streetcar to head home), Simon Shwartz of Maison Blanche presented a problem for K&B. When Shwartz opened the “new” MB Building, with its eight floors of office space, a lot of doctors of all specialties moved in. Shwartz opened a pharmacy in the building. The tenants could pick up the phone and a runner would bring prescriptions down to the pharmacy. The patient picked it up before they returned to Canal Street.
732 Canal Street, now a Foot Locker Store (via Google Maps)
The location is now a Foot Locker.
Store No. 2, 841 Canal Street (at Dauphine)
K&B responded by opening a store at 841 Canal, across Dauphine Street from MB. Additionally, K&B enabled patients to transfer their scrips to the stores further uptown. So, you could see the doc on Canal Street and maintain your prescriptions near the house.
Store no. 2, Canal and Dauphine Streets (streetcarmike.com photo)
The location later became the “Camera Center”
Store number 3, St. Charles and Louisiana Avenues
K&B opened their third store at St. Charles and Louisiana. The building in the illustration was later demolished to make way for a more-modern store.
NOPSI 926, heading inbound on the St. Charles Line, passes K&B store number 3 in the 1980s. (Streetcarmike.com photo)
The Louisiana Avenue store housed the chain’s photo-processing lab/operation on the second floor.
Store number 4, S. Carrollton Ave. and Oak St.
The fourth store extended the reach of K&B out to the Oak Street retail area. They opened a store at S. Carrollton Avenue and Oak Street. The building is Still There More, as a Canseco’s Market.
1905-1997
Chuck’s on the Avenue (Infrogmation photo)
Katz & Besthoff Drugstores operated from that first store in 1905 until 1997. The chain sold out to Rite-Aid at that time. The building remains, and is now a liquor store, Chuck’s on the Avenue.
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