It’s interesting how some of the signposts in our lives are not just births, marriages, deaths and the like. Sometimes it’s the passing of an institution or even a store.
Zlaket’s closure on Main Street in Garden Grove was one of those things, signaling an end to a nearly a century of small-town service to a community that grew from a village into a mid-size city.
This week I got the news that our local Rite-Aid was closing its doors and that we had a month to move our prescriptions to some other pharmacy.
If you’ve noticed, this contraction of drugstore/pharmacies has been going on for several years and was probably predictable. There was a big expansion of that part of the market a while back and pretty soon there was – or seemed to be – on every corner a Rite-Aid, Walgreens or CVS.
On top of that, many other store chains – Target, Albertsons and Walmart – are now in the medicine business, so there’s no worries that we will have to drive to the county seat to get our prescriptions filled.
It’s just that the loss of familiar brands serves as an end-mark to memories and experiences that spread over decades.
Growing up, the big battle was between Sav-On and Thrifty Drug. We were a Sav-On family, but –frankly we were more likely to buy sweets, small appliances and soda than pharmacueticals there.
Each had the loss leader of cheap ice cream cones. Five (later 10) cents for one scoop and 10 (later 15) cents for two scoops. I preferred Sav-Ons (great chocolate chip) but the general consensus was that Thrifty’s ice cream was the standard of the drug stores. That was so widely-believed that when Thrifty was absorbed into Rite-Aid in 1994, they kept the ice cream service. That was such a big deal that you could smell the familiar Thrifty’s aroma long after the sign was replaced by the new owner.
Now it looks like it’s Rite-Aid’s turn to become a fond memory. It’s hard to know what’s next, but I wouldn’t be surprised if pretty soon you’ll be able to get Thrifty ice cream at the drive-through window at Starbucks.
Categories: Opinion













The picture & description get it right: It wasn’t Rite-Aid that we loved, but rather, Thrifty Drug. Either way, RIP.