1 Cent - Warehouse Food Outlet Los Angeles, California

Warehouse Food Outlet was a Southern California discount grocery chain that issued paper scrip in cent denominations — almost certainly as till change tokens during a period when small coin shortages and high transaction volumes made fractional cents genuinely inconvenient at the register. This kind of merchant scrip was never legal tender and carried no obligation beyond the issuing store, which also meant redemption was entirely at the retailer's discretion.

The 1960s–70s dating window is characteristic of when such schemes peaked among California volume grocers before electronic point-of-sale systems made fractional rounding obsolete.