2026 HERITAGE AWARD
The Redlands Area Historical Society, Inc.
Sousa’s Sea Food Market
420 West Colton Avenue
1967
On the northeast corner of West Colton Avenue & Columbia Street sits a stucco & shingle midcentury modern commercial building on a slab foundation in the historic Columbia Tract. This 840 square-foot structure is the second structure to occupy this footprint. The earlier structure was a one-story Victorian Cottage style home with the address of 818 Columbia Street, originally owned by a W. J. Austin. It was this home that Antonio Sousa moved into in 1954, after he emigrated from the Azores to Redlands. The present-day Midcentury Modern retail structure occupies 0.2 acres on this iconic Redlands street, boasting distinctive architecture & history, with deep ties to the Redlands Area’s Portuguese-American community.
According to Portuguese of the Redlands East Valley by Jane Jacinto Mishak, Antonio Jacinto Sousa was born in 1927 on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, the nephew of the four Jacinto brothers, who successively came to Redlands between 1909 & 1921 to engage in the region’s agricultural & tourism economies. Two of his Jacinto uncles sponsored his immigration in 1951. Working first at Gill Battery in Redlands & then at a coffin company in San Bernardino while learning English, Antonio became an entrepreneur in 1953. Another member of the Azorean community of Redlands, Frank Silva, known colloquially as “the Fish Man,” had decided to retire after selling fish door-to-door out of the back of a Model-A for over 20 years; Sousa bought the business. Sousa became so trusted by the community that he was allowed to access various homes to place orders in the refrigerators.
Antonio sent for his wife-to-be, Maria Chaves, who was able to join him in 1956, & in that year they were able to build the first structure of “Sousa’s Sea Food Fresh & Cooked,” on the corner of West Colton Avenue & Columbia Street, where the parking lot is today. Antonio continued door-to-door sales, & Maria would mind the store, although her English was still limited. Their growing family continued to live in the house on the site of today’s Midcentury structure. The enterprising Antonio soon decided to open an A&W drive-in on the property, the buildings of which still stand on the Colton Avenue side of the property. Following that, the Sousa family decided to build a new casa da peche or fish house, a fish market & restaurant. The family moved, permits were pulled in 1966, & the present structure was completed in 1967. Antonio built the structure himself during off-hours. The old market was demolished at this time.
The architecture of the building is sophisticated, despite being self-built, & testifies to the skill-level & design tastes of the builder. According to Antonio Sousa’s daughter, Maria Sousa Meiners, the building drew inspiration from another well-known Midcentury building. At the time the new “Sousa’s Sea Food Market” was being planned, Anthony’s Fish Grotto was undergoing expansions of its own on the San Diego Waterfront in 1966. Their new building, over the water on stilts, designed by San Diego Modernist powerhouse partnership Liebhardt & Weston, was the first of its kind to boast exterior elevations of distinctive arcaded shingled arches, reminiscent of the sterncastle of a carrack, or Portuguese nau. Frederick Liebhardt, born in San Marino, CA, was a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple trained at Taliesin & Taliesin West. Eugene Weston, born in Hollywood, trained under legendary California architect Bertram Goodhue. Buildings designed by the partnership are much revered in the San Diego region, including buildings for UC San Diego, the Scripps Institution, & the San Diego Wild Animal Park. The exterior of Anthony’s and of Sousa’s relay a Midcentury concept called “programmatic architecture,” where the building’s form is related to the type of business carried out within it, or in this case, in the echoing maritime architectural motifs in a highly literate form, as programmatic architecture can also have highly vernacular or kitsch expressions as well. These arches were much imitated throughout the Midcentury period in Southern California, with & without shingles, but Sousa’s Sea Food Market appears to be one of the earliest. The original, Anthony’s, was demolished in 2017, making Sousa’s Sea Food Market one of the oldest surviving examples of what was at the time a cutting-edge architectural form, further testifying to Sousa’s skill as a builder who appears to have largely been self-taught.
The front elevation of the building is composed of an arcade of three arches with coved eaves, with the front door through the middle arch. The foundation below the arches is Bouquet Canyon Flagstone, a Californian material. The top segments of each arch is pebbled Flemish glass, & the entrance door is through the middle arch. At the apex of each arch is a globe-shaped glass light fixture. The entire front elevation is unpainted shingle, & the roofline is a mansard. On the interior, the poured terrazzo floor & light fixtures are original. The flooring in particular was chosen to “last for generations.” The Columbia Street elevation is stucco & has a coved eave.
The Sousa’s went the extra mile to bring the best fish to Redlands. Before the time of the interstate, bringing the catch of the day from San Pedro or elsewhere sometimes involved early mornings. Family vacations in the summer often involved trips to fishing locations around the country to network with suppliers. The Sea Food Market would close with a simple sign on the door saying “Gone Fishing.” Other times, Antonio would see trucks driving to resorts in Palm Springs & either call the companies or drive after them to make arrangements to start to be on their delivery route to get the same top-quality seafood going to the luxury hotels. Though Antonio Sousa passed away while on a visit to the Azores in 1986, his wife Maria carried on with the business until it finally closed in 2001, spanning a 46 year career. Maria passed away in 2015 & was buried at Hillside Memorial Park. Antonio’s name was also included on the stone; the inscription reads “Gone Fishing.” After Sousa’s Seafood closed, the building was used by other businesses, including Redlands Glass House, & has been most recently occupied by Slow Bloom Coffee Collective, who have embraced the Midcentury character of the space in the design & aesthetic of their coffee shop, laudably making use of original lighting fixtures & other original materials in creating a space that is at once current & true to the Midcentury Modern stylings of the building & space. Through it all, the second generation of the Sousa family has remained connected to where Antonio & Maria built their family business.
The Redlands Area Historical Society congratulates the Sousa Family on this 2026 Heritage Award and for their multi-generational stewardship of this Redlands treasure. We also commend the current tenant, Slow Bloom Coffee Collective, for thoroughly embracing adaptive reuse.
Research by John P. Beall and Michelle Hong.
Presented on June 9, 2026.