Fate Bankruptcy Number of locations 1 | Defunct 1971 (1971) | |
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Industry Grocery store, health food store Founded 1969 (1969) in West Hollywood, United States Products Natural organic vegetarian food, supplements, and herbs Founders Arnie Geller, Brian Wilson, Steve Korthoff | ||
Radiant radish
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.
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Background
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."
Closure
The Radiant Radish closed in 1971 due to unprofitable produce expenditures and Wilson's general lack of business acumen. In 2015, when asked what his favorite part about running the store was, Wilson responded: "The cash register."
Legacy
The Radiant Radish is mentioned in the lyric to "H.E.L.P. Is on the Way", a song Wilson wrote for the Beach Boys; author David Toop remarked that it could have been "the only pop song in history to mention enemas." The shop appears as an illustration on the cover of the tribute album Smiles, Vibes & Harmony: A Tribute to Brian Wilson (1990).