Archive Note
Cartwright and Rudy opened the shop on Whittier Boulevard between Garfield and Atlantic Avenues, deliberately choosing East Los Angeles because the neighborhood had no professional tattoo shop despite a large Mexican-American tattooing culture rooted in prison and barrio traditions. They adapted the single-needle technique of la pinta, the penitentiary, into a professional studio method: custom one-of-a-kind designs in black and gray, fine gray-washed religious imagery, lettering, and portraiture, with no flash walls. The shop ran around the clock and gave the Chicano black-and-grey style a professional venue, training or employing the figures who spread it. They hired Freddy Negrete in 1977 and sold the shop to Don Ed Hardy that same year, which connected it to the wider fine-art tattoo movement. Good Time Charlie's relocated to Anaheim in 1985, where it continues to operate.