The Radiant Radish in 1969
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Industry | Grocery store, health food store |
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Fate | Bankruptcy |
Founded | 1969West Hollywood, United States | in
Founders | Brian Wilson, Steve Korthoff, Arnie Geller |
Defunct | 1971 |
Number of locations
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1 |
Products | Natural organic vegetarian food, supplements, and herbs |
The Radiant Radish was a health food store located at the corner of Melrose Avenue and San Vicente Boulevard in West Hollywood, California from 1969 to 1971. It was managed by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, his cousin Steve Korthoff, and band road manager Arnie Geller.
Sometime in 1969, erstwhile Beach Boys bandleader Brian Wilson opened a short-lived health food store called the Radiant Radish. It was co-founded by his cousin, Steve Korthoff, and the band's road manager, Arnie Geller. The shop was preceded by Wilson's fervent interest in physical fitness once exemplified in the song "Vegetables", written for the Beach Boys' album Smile in 1966 (Smile itself had many intentions, one of which was to be a "health food album"). While working at the shop, he met journalist and radio presenter Jack Rieley, who would manage the Beach Boys and act as Wilson's principal lyricist for a brief period.
The store was famously profiled in a piece written by Tom Nolan for Rolling Stone, "The Beach Boys: A California Saga". After watching Ingmar Bergman's Skammen at a theater, Nolan encountered Wilson alone at the store as he was clad in a bathrobe. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin later wrote: "Nolan was less surprised by the robe than by the simple fact that the man wearing it was a millionaire rock star whose penchant for seclusion had become nearly as famous as the many hit songs he had written and produced. Just three years after writing and producing 'Good Vibrations', Brian Wilson was selling vitamins out of a health food store in West Hollywood."