After decades in business and hundreds of live shows, General Feed & Seed quietly closes its doors

Tucked away off of Soquel Drive on Commercial Way, General Feed & Seed operated out of a sturdy, barnlike structure for over 40 years until the last day of April, when it quietly shut its doors after decades of serving the community. The business was open for 54 years in total.

Debra Kuettel, 70, who owned and managed the store since 1993, said that the reason for closing is pretty simple: She’s retiring.

“It was a difficult decision – the time that I owned and managed it was the best time in almost my whole life,” she told Lookout. She added that some of the products, particularly horse tack and other equestrian equipment, weren’t selling as well as they used to due to the advent of online shopping, but she had no trouble selling things like feed or hay up until the day the store closed.

The all-in-one store had everything from horse tack and livestock supplies to standard dog and cat food and other traditional pet supplies. Jerry Kay, the owner and manager prior to Kuettel, said the business had actually been around since 1971 and changed hands a few times before he acquired it in 1981. Originally, he said, it was called General Hardware and Seed and was stationed off Soquel Drive near 41st Avenue. He said the store sold products that were relatively difficult to get your hands on.

“They had their own formulas and made feeds that didn’t have any hormones or additives,” Kay said, adding that the business also sold organic fertilizers that weren’t readily available. In a way, the store was on the ground level of the area’s organic farming movement in the 1970s and ’80s. “You had the farm and garden up at UC Santa Cruz teaching a lot of that, and Cabrillo College had a big organic garden program,” Kay said. “General Feed & Seed became the supplier for back-to-the-land homesteaders and budding organic growers.”

But the longstanding store was more than just unique garden and farm supply. It was also a hub for community gatherings and live music. Kay got involved with Hollister-based KHIP radio station, which broadcasts to the Salinas-Monterey-Santa Cruz area, after a fire severely damaged the station. The station ended up moving its live radio show to the store for about five years in the mid-to-late ’80s, aptly referred to as “The General Feed & Seed Live Music Show.” Longtime radio personality and show promoter John Sandidge remembers it well.

“We did about 200 shows at General Feed & Seed,” Sandidge said. “Every Sunday, we got a stage in there, bales of hay and old church pews. There was a live show with free admission, and we filled up the store every Sunday.”

For Sandidge, the DIY-style live shows were rather impactful and put him on the path that he would take for the rest of his life.

“It was sort of the start of a career in putting on live music shows on the radio,” he said, adding that he had gotten his start at KHIP. “I have such fond memories of that, and all of the funny and weird things that happened during live radio shows. It created a whole life for me.”

Kay said that aside from the weekly live shows, the store also had its fair share of notable and recognizable regulars. Those included Pat Simmons, founding member of The Doobie Brothers; Page Smith, the founding provost of Cowell College at UC Santa Cruz; and Aptos resident bodybuilder Dave Draper, who claimed the Mr. America, Mr. Universe and Mr. World titles.

“We even had some different offshoot musicians working or hanging out there,” Kay said. “Steve Marriott from Humble Pie was hanging out there back in the early days — a lot of interesting people came through there.”

Kay added that some of those who worked at his store went on to follow a similar path and begin their own feed stores and organic farms: “A lot of them used to call themselves Jerry’s kids.”

Even beyond the days of live music, once Kuettel took it over, she kept the events for the public alive in a number of ways.

“It was a meeting place for the community – I had a lot of different fundraisers there, I had a used tack sale and people could sell their local goods there,” she said. “They could sell their honey they made or the soap they made, and we’d always have a barbecue. That was really rewarding, it was like a mini farmers market.”

Although Kuettel closed the book on the business as it was on Commercial Way, she added that she does still own the name. A comeback, in some form or another, isn’t entirely out of the question.

“Maybe I’ll open up a new spot, or maybe I’ll just do an online venue,” she said. “But it will be on a smaller scale.”

Kay, who still owns the property the business operated from, said it’s going to reopen as an auto shop specializing in classic cars in the coming weeks. In any event, Kay couldn’t hold his time there in higher regard.

“I look back at it as one of the most wonderful business and community experiences that I could have had anywhere in the world,” he said. “I think we were an important part of our community, and I was able to be creative and involve myself with a lot of wonderful employees and a wonderful community and contribute to it.”

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