[6] The company pioneered the "cash & carry" concept in Los Angeles (before, clerks would gather the groceries for the customers) and by 1895, benefiting from rapid population growth in the region thanks to the building of the Los Angeles aqueduct, the discovery of oil in Long Beach, and the opening of the Panama Canal, the company had $2 million in sales.
[2] He moved to San Francisco in 1900 where he founded Haas Wholesale Grocers and was a director for Wells Fargo Bank, the San Francisco Savings & Loan Company, the California Insurance League, and the Union Sugar Company.
[2] Haas was a benefactor of the Eureka Benevolent Society (later the Jewish Family Service), the Federation of Jewish Charities, and the Pacific Orphans’ Asylum and Home Society.
[2] Abraham Haas married Fanny Koshland, a daughter of Simon Koshland, one of the leading wool merchants in San Francisco,[2] with whom he had four children: Charles Haas (1888-?
), Walter A. Haas Sr. (1889-1979) (married Elise Fanny Stern, daughter of Sigmund Stern,[8] a nephew of Levi Strauss, and granddaughter of David Stern), Ruth Haas Lilienthal (1891-1975) (married Philip N. Lilienthal Jr., son of banker Philip N. Lilienthal and grandson of rabbi Max Lilienthal), and Eleanor Haas Koshland (1900-1959)[9] (married her cousin Daniel E. Koshland Sr., the son of her maternal uncle, Marcus Koshland).