Miscellaneous Drugstore Chain Discussion

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TheQuestioner
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Post by TheQuestioner »

I read that Rea and Derrick was part of Peoples' by the late 80's, and was therefore absorbed into CVS when they bought Peoples.

There was a chain called Whelan Drug that I have seen in many photos from the 1940s-1960's. I am pretty sure they were around even before that. I haven't been able to find out too much about their history online. When did they begin? WHen did they die out/get bought out? What was their territory? I have seen them in photos from various parts of the East Coast, and possibly other regions. I know they were in NYC and the Wash. DC area in the 40's and 50's.
MBZ321
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Post by MBZ321 »

Happy Harry's drug stores, a Delaware-based chain or ~73 stores which was founded in the early 1960's, was swallowed by Walgreens last year, and the stores are still using the Happy Harry's name for now. They were using different ads, but I see now they are using the same Walgreens ads/promos with the Happy Harry's logo on them with "a Walgreens company" in smaller print.
Edric Floyd
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Post by Edric Floyd »

TenPoundHammer wrote:There was Cunningham's Drug in Michigan and Ohio. The Michigan stores were sold to Detroit-based Perry in the 1980s, and the Ohio ones went to Gray Drug. Rite Aid bought out Perry in 1995... and ironically, bought out Gray Drug around the same time.
Was the Cunningham Drug stores in Michigan related to the Cunningham Drugs stores in South Florida during the 1970's and early 1980's?

Growing up in South Florida we had Cunningham Drugs in Boca Raton and I recall one in the Galt Ocean Mile area of Fort Lauderdale.


I also remember Gray Drug in South Florida. We had two in Pompano Beach, one inside the Pompano Fashion Square mall (now called Pompano Citi Centre) and one in the now demolished Cypress Plaza. Both of these became Rite-Aid stores in the late 1980's and were both closed by the early 1990's.
Edric Floyd
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Post by Edric Floyd »

In New York during the 1980's, the PATHMARK supermarket chain began opening PATHMARK Drugstores in spaces once occupied by supermarkets.

The former Genovese Drugs chain also expanded heavily into former grocery store space in the NYC area.

Wherever there was a vacant former A&P, Finast or Waldbaums (and there were PLENTY of each in Queens where I lived in the early 1980's) you might find a GENOVESE or a PATHMARK Drug store.

Most of the PATHMARK Drugstores became Rite-Aid stores in the 1990's while PATHMARK opened more new supermarkets that included pharmacies.

Genovese Drugs merged into Eckerd in the 1990's. I havent been to NYC in two years so don't know if they have been converted to Rite-Aid or anything else yet.

Some of these may now be Duane Reade drug stores, a local NYC area chain that was once limited to Manhattan itself now has locations throughout the area.
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Dave
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Post by Dave »

Here are some from the 1966 Richmond telephone directory:

Drug-Way Stores. Looks like a cooperative at the time, probably local, also noted as "Your Richmond Rexall Drug Stores" - but, not all Rexalls in Richmond were Drug-Ways. In 1966, their stores were still shown under individual names (such as Maybuery Pharmacy), but later I remember large Drug-Way stores trading under the Drug-Way name.

Better Health Service Stores, Inc. Looks also like a local cooperative.

Medical Service Drug Stores. Rexall affiliated. Local cooperative?

Lafayette Pharmacy. Mulitiple locations, and pretty sure this was a local chain or cooperative.

White Cross Stores. I'm pretty sure these stores weren't strictly local, but don't know for sure. Some of their locations didn't have prescription service.

There were also multiple locations of Peoples Service Drug Stores and Standard Drug Company. One other that interested me was Drug Mart, "formerly Dart Drug". I knew that Dart had had some Richmond locations in the early '60's and disappeared for awhile, coming back in the late '70's. Was Drug Mart operated by the Hafts? The ad in the telephone book looks like a "national" rather than a "local" ad.

If anyone knows anything different about any of the above, like if something I pegged as local wasn't local, please post.
rich
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Post by rich »

Revco bought many small and medium sized chains in the Southeast during the 70s. They often did a very poor job of integrating them. I remember gloomy, poorly stocked stores in Nashville, when I lived there in the 80s--stores Revco had bought from a couple different chains and never upgrade--in Nashville's dead downtown, they had 2 stores almost across from each other. Despite better prices than Walgreen, Eckerd, or (esp.) SuperX they did little business and only Walgreen was a consistently good operator. A relative of mine who worked for Revco at that time claimed that they bought so many stores in the 70s, they never knew which ones were making any money.
TenPoundHammer
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Post by TenPoundHammer »

Edric Floyd wrote:Was the Cunningham Drug stores in Michigan related to the Cunningham Drugs stores in South Florida during the 1970's and early 1980's?

Growing up in South Florida we had Cunningham Drugs in Boca Raton and I recall one in the Galt Ocean Mile area of Fort Lauderdale.
I don't know about the Cunningham chain in Michigan, seeing as they disappeared before I was born. I'll look into that sometime. I can tell you that Cunningham's had a location in just about every mall and strip mall in Michigan throughout the 1970s, most often sharing a mall with a Kroger and Kresge.
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Post by TennesseeTuxedo »

javelin wrote:
TheStranger wrote:The one that comes to mind immediately is up in Barstow; I know the Safeway there is now operating as Vons but not sure what the Super S is. (There's a photo of it in this site's 1960s Safeway section.)
If this is the building I'm thinking of, it was vacant the last time I saw it. To the right, the DMV had an office years ago before moving it to another dying shopping plaza which had a K Mart (now an indoor swap meet).
The building the Safeway was in is not the one you were thinking of. Back when the DMV was in the plaza you are thinking of, there was an Alpha-Beta next to it. Across the street (Main St) from Alpha Beta was the Safeway. It closed and became a Hughes Market for a while. The Vons is also across the street (Yucca) from what was the Safeway/Hughes. There was a drug store next to the Vons...but I do not remember the name. It is now a dollar store.
The Dying shopping plaza that had the K-Mart was the Barstow Mall. Indeed a "Dead Mall". Used to live in Barstow (and worked at the Stater Bros. there) and go back frequently to visit family.
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runchadrun
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Katz Drug Stores

Post by runchadrun »

There's a great post on the Lotta Living board at http://www.lottaliving.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=8766 about Katz Drug Stores in the Kansas City area, which is now owned by CVS. There are a bunch of pictures of some wonderful architecture, some of which is threatened with "modernization." My favorite has got to be the one with the zig zag roof that reminds me of the outfield pavilions of Dodger Stadium.
justin karimzad
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Post by justin karimzad »

Does anybody know if the Giant Value at 2558 Mission St. (now a dollar store) in San Francisco was related to the Value Giant chain?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekylucas/410997113/
Toby Radloff
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Post by Toby Radloff »

Was the Cunningham Drug stores in Michigan related to the Cunningham Drugs stores in South Florida during the 1970's and early 1980's?

Growing up in South Florida we had Cunningham Drugs in Boca Raton and I recall one in the Galt Ocean

I believe that the Florida Cunningham's are the same as the Detroit/Cleveland chain. In 1983, a Cunningham's sign was featured in the teen sex comedy "Spring Break", which is about a group of college students on spring break in Fort Lauderdale. A scene featuring storefronts in Fort Lauderdale included a Cunningham's sign, in the same font as the Michigan and Ohio stores. "Spring Break" was released by Columbia Pictures on VHS, but I doubt if it was ever released on DVD. Ironically, the director of "Spring Break" is Sean Cunningham...maybe that's why he included the Cunningham's sign in his film.
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