Retail Watchers

the rite aid in clovis is closing. this was one of the few remaining non drive-thru stores in the fresno area and the last one not to sell thrifty ice cream by the scoop. this store was formerly a payless drug and was downsized after remodel. the only non drive-thru store left in fresno will now be first/bullard and as they have been purging the stores without drive-thus, first/bullard could be on death watch.

Looks like it did not get any remodel beyond a lower budget one in the early 00's.

There are one or two of these left like this in rough parts of Sacramento too.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are many Rite Aid stores that were former Thrifty or Payless stores that still do not have drive thru pharmacies. Most of them have been remodeled and seem to do very good business.

CVS and Walgreens have very few drive thru stores. This is due to the many old stores and many urban San Francisco pharmacies. In San Francisco, most people walk and many do not have cars.

In the rest of the Bay Area, many CVS stores are former Longs Drugs stores. Longs was not into drive thru pharmacies.

Drive thru pharmacies are bad in that customers do not go into the stores. The stores are losing out on tons of sales. Just walking through the store tempts people to buy lots of stuff that they would not have bought at a drive thru window.

The only time a drive through pharmacy may be a good idea is in a bad neighborhood with a 24 hour store. Just operate pharmacy via drive through. Forget front of store, theft, and the robbery risks that come with being open...

I don't know any Rite Aid location in the Los Angeles area that has a drive-thru. Most were built as Thrifty and some as Payless (and only one that I know of was built as a Rite Aid - Westwood Village - which was a relocation & downsizing). Almost all have been remodeled and do a good to great business.

I only know of a few CVS and Walgreens that have drive-thru pharmacies in Los Angeles County. And one Ralphs (Redondo Beach). I rarely ever see anyone in the drive-thru pharmacy at that Ralphs.

I was in a newer Rite Aid in Glendale a month or two ago and it has a drive-thru pharmacy. But I agree they are rare in SoCal.

Drive-thru banks are also not as common down here compared to other places.

I think the lack of drive-thru pharmacies has more to do with the fact that many of the stores acquired from Thrifty and PayLess are in strip malls where, due to the layout, it is simply not practical to add one. Often these stores are not right on the end of the strip mall. There is one Rite Aid near me that did add a drive-thru pharmacy, but only because the mall around it was demolished and it opened up a wall where it would work. Most locations in strip malls in my area do not have drive-thru pharmacies while most if not all of the standalone stores do.

Come to think of it, some of the Walgreens in Vancouver which are former Hi-School Pharmacy stores also lack drive-thru pharmacies for the same reason.