Just north of the original Estes house was a drug store, but it didn’t have a pharmacist. Witmer’s Sandwiches, Fountain and Sundries was originally a one-story building but a second story was added and Mr. and Mrs. Witmer lived upstairs above their store. They had a soda fountain the kids really loved. They sold patent medicines, shoe pads, adhesive tape, iodine, ointments – anything that came in a box.
The Witmer’s detached garage was to the west of the drug store and residence at 150 S. Acacia.
A view looking north on 101. In the foreground is Witmer’s Sandwiches, Fountain and Sundries. (Photo courtesy of the San Diego Historical Society)
Since 1983-1984, the Witmer’s detached garage on Acacia was a down-home breakfast spot run by Ms. Jan Brown called the Hideaway Cafe. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 ended the Cafe’s run in the former garage.
[sources: “Breakfast, Old Solana Beach Style” by Ed Bedford, San Diego Reader, October 26, 2011, Early Solana Beach, Recollections by George C. Wilkens & Robert “Chuckles” Hernandez as told to Jim Nelson, 2002 and Solana Beach, Forty Years of Progress, 1922-1962, April, 1962.]