Vincent's Market

Photo by Tenaya HillsVincent's Market, on Chapman Avenue in Fullerton, just east of the high school and the college, is the kind of little business you just know has either a wrecking ball or a mixer full of stucco hanging over its head like Damocles' sword.

Nothing against stucco, but every house with as much peeling paint as Vincent's usually gets tar-papered, chicken-wired and stuccoed the next month. Everyone always stuccoes over siding because they're too lazy to keep it scraped and painted.

We like clapboard siding and ornate eaves—even if they need work; even if, as in this case, they appear to be just a kind of false front for a cinder-block box of a building. Vincent's looks like it's straight out of Topanga Canyon. It looks like markets used to look, and that's a compliment. Hope it stays that way.