Corry Plaza

With everything going on in the world at the moment, I thought it would be appropriate to take a quick look around at a pharmacy in Corry, PA - and would later revise my plan to basically take a look at the entirety of the shopping plaza it is located in. 

All evidence would suggest that this CVS location seen below was a former Revco and that would make sense given this location is part of a community shopping plaza.

While its true you 'quit tobacco' by not selling it anymore, I don't think it is that easy for your customers to quit. But, hey this isn't a bad move; just amusing as CVS quit tobacco in an entirely different way then what most would assume those words to mean. 

Comments on my Flickr photostream suggest that the aisle marker signs happen to be a relic from Revco, so that's pretty neat that CVS actually reused them. 

And now I pivot this post to focus on the neighbor to this CVS for a second. I have a suspicion that the Save a Lot next door may have been a Kroger at one point. Given that Revco was likely next door, I feel pretty confident in my guess.

It actually did relocate to this spot from an abandoned plaza (as seen below) closer to downtown Corry, so obviously something would of been here prior.

A few pictures of an entirely different shopping plaza closer to downtown Corry that is now mostly abandoned.

Back at the Corry Plaza, we also have a few more pictures to look at:

Former Quality Farm and Fleet; and likely also a former Ames 

Former a GC Murphy 5&10 then a Dollar Zone 

Wellsville's Rite Aid-Walgreens

It's hard to say where Walgreens' plans are stands in the taking over select Rite Aid stores. While many have closed in other parts of the country where Walgreens had more market presence, this region has generally seen little to no closures that I know of the top of my head. This makes for a very confusing shopping experience if you ask me. Am I shopping at Rite Aid or Walgreens?

One town where this situation occurs is in Wellsville. While Walgreens already has a store in the community, which ironically is a former Rite Aid that was taken over after Rite Aid's Eckerd purchase. Rite Aid relocated to the Eckerd site with higher traffic counts and that store is what this post features. Walgreens still plans to apparently operate both locations as Walgreens from what I gather- eventually. But for now, a two-in-one store of competing companies continues to operate under one roof.

Welcome to Rite Aid with a Walgreens pharmacy

I really like this cart tunnel. Pretty cool and unique.

 

Watsontown's CVS

There's a neat little CVS in Watsontown, PA. This location appears to have been a former Rea & Derrick location that CVS took over which means that there is no drive-thru. I took a brief stop here and thought I'd share what I saw:

This location has limited parking.

Kroger; In the Northeast?

---------------------------------------------  NEWS STORY ------------------------------------------------------

In a rather interesting turn of events for the Walgreens/Rite Aid merger, Kroger has evidently expressed an interest in buying some of the excess stores that will be created once the merger FINALLY goes through. This news is actually rather interesting because it not only brings Kroger into the northeast, but also creates the possibility of a new prototype for the company. 
The question is (assuming the deal were to go through) would Kroger operate a smaller supermarket within or just run a Kroger-branded drug store chain?

Being right in the middle of it all, I may just have a front row seat if Kroger does indeed get access to the 500-1,000 locations expected to be sold off.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/08/29/kroger-could-be-looking-to-snap-up-walgreens-rite.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

Modern Remodeled Rite Aid

As I had mentioned in a post last month, it is my intention to try to get most of the decor packages at Rite Aid locations in the Twin Tiers coverage area. Unfortunately, the weather is going the other way in the Great Lakes region, so some designs may or may not get covered. I stepped out on Halloween to visit a few different Rite Aid locations and to my surprise many of them actually have remodeled to this design. I knew some locations had remodeled, but I didn't realize that this many did. The exterior hadn't changed at these locations; something of which was throwing me off.

I was able to locate three different decor packages, though one is left over from Eckerd. Some of these locations I visited were smaller stores so they also had less signage than others. My local Rite Aid is a larger former Eckerd (with more signage than the one I visited) that I too will have to take some pictures of eventually.

This location serving downtown and south Jamestown has the diamond window design with the rare red letters:

 I'll let the pictures do the talking here:

Freezers has a separate roof. Might be original to the store, left over from a design prior or both.

This isn't the newest design seen at brand new locations. Newer ground-up locations feature circle signs. There aren't any brand new Rite Aid locations close to me. Though the closest one to me is in Emporium, PA or Waterloo, NY, winter is not the time of year to be traveling to those areas, especially for Emporium. To see this variant you can check out this picture from Baltimore_Retail's flickr photostream.

More Rite Aid posts to come in the future!