Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

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storewanderer
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Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by storewanderer »

Throughout Utah there are a lot of Rite Aids that still feature an early 1990's Osco interior (striped walls colored), old metal Osco checkstands, and have the Osco logos painted or covered over on the walls. If you look closely enough you can see the logo in some of the stores.

Aside from a few new stores it appears Payless and then Rite Aid engaged in near zero capital expenditures in Utah from 1992 when they bought Osco Stores and now. I am absolutely shocked some of these stores are still open. They seem to do almost no business. I wanted to take photos but it is really hard to take photos when you are the only customer and the employees seem to be watching your every move!

However this trip I did find a few stores actually remodeled into the "Wellness" interior. One was in Park City, one was in Taylorsville, and one was in Murray (open until Midnight, must do well).

Actually all of the stores were well stocked and neat. Maybe that is easy with so few customers.

The store in Park City features a unique Thrifty Ice Cream/Thrifty Frozen Yogurt/Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf department up where you would expect to see the photo department. It has a few tables/chairs as well. I did not see Thrifty product being sold in any other Utah locations, either.
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by Super S »

Boise has a couple of Skaggs-turned Osco-turned Payless-Turned Rite Aid locations. One which may still have an Osco or Skaggs interior is the one at State Street & Gary Lane. The one near 16th & State has been updated on the interior. I do not think any of the Boise Rite Aid stores opened as Osco, however. Most were opened as Skaggs or PayLess, with the exception of the ones Rite Aid has built.

When Skaggs became Osco, They removed the Osco name from all of the Buttrey stores in Boise. I don't know if this took place at other Buttrey stores, however.

Rite Aid let a lot of their acquired stores go for a long time. There are still examples in Washington and Oregon which have PayLess and Pay 'N Save interiors. However, they are starting to make a big push to update many of them, and in some cases consolidating things into a smaller space. It's long overdue as Walgreens has built many new stores, and the door is open for CVS as they are taking over Target's pharmacy operations.
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by wnetmacman »

Even now, in Louisiana, many of the old K&B stores that still survive have the old K&B interior (purple-tinted white paneling and Terazzo floors with purple highlights around the store). This isn't unusual for Rite Aid to hold back on improvements. Some of these stores have been Rite Aid since 1997.
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by storewanderer »

I just pulled photos from 2009 of the 7020 W. State St. Rite Aid in Boise and it looks like it has a Skaggs floor/layout with Payless early 90's walls. I have no clue who put the light box with flowers up which looks like an absolute horror but assume it must be from Skaggs too.

I think some of the stores in Utah were actually opened by Osco. I believe the distinction between stores opened by Skaggs and stores opened by Osco is the layout of the pharmacy. In the stores opened by Skaggs, the pharmacy is sort of like in its own little room away from the rest of the store usually on the side or in the back corner of the store, sometimes even right up front. In the stores opened by Osco, the pharmacy is a more traditional set up with a counter toward the middle of the back wall.

I simply cannot get over how these stores in Utah currently operated by Rite Aid are such time capsules of the old Osco chain. It is like Payless never actually operated these stores at all; there are few to no signs of Payless in these stores. I guess Payless operation was limited as it was from just 1992-1998. The layouts, product placement, signs, even policy stickers posted around the stores are all old Osco things.

For instance: Skaggs pharmacy (bet nowhere else has those wall letters still...):
Image

That pharmacy and its placement in the middle of the side wall is identical to an old Skaggs/Osco/Sav-On in Reno which was Skaggs #6 (still open as CVS, on Plumb Lane) how it was set up when I was very young. The store was radically remodeled in the mid 1990's as Osco so it did not retain any signs of its old layout.

Osco pharmacy:
Image
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote:I just pulled photos from 2009 of the 7020 W. State St. Rite Aid in Boise and it looks like it has a Skaggs floor/layout with Payless early 90's walls. I have no clue who put the light box with flowers up which looks like an absolute horror but assume it must be from Skaggs too.


Did you post the pictures of the Boise store? I don't see them.
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by storewanderer »

Here is that Boise store in all its horror: let's see: Payless wall, Rite Aid aisle hangers, what I assume is an Osco floor, Skaggs pharmacy in the background, and that lit up thing with flowers I have no clue where that came from:
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote:that lit up thing with flowers I have no clue where that came from:
One of the chains had someone working there that had been part of Grand Union? That's what it reminds me of (they had things like that over the checkouts, but with their Clean Fresh & Good slogan printed into the glass).
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote:Here is that Boise store in all its horror: let's see: Payless wall, Rite Aid aisle hangers, what I assume is an Osco floor, Skaggs pharmacy in the background, and that lit up thing with flowers I have no clue where that came from:
I have not been inside that store in many, many years. I think the last time was when it was PayLess. If I had to take a guess, that flower thing might have been over a cosmetics counter. I say this due to the location near the pharmacy, and because Pay 'N Save (according to what others have posted) used to do a similar treatment in that area, even though the two chains were not related.

For what it's worth I do remember the original sign reading "SKAGGS DRUG & HOME CENTER" followed by one that read "Osco Drug & Home Center" (in the typical Osco signage. The Home Center part disappeared when PayLess took over. I think this was the last store Skaggs built in Boise. PayLess had a store across the street originally and closed it as they took over the Osco stores.
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by storewanderer »

I never remember Osco having a cosmetics counter but that may pre-date me. Longs had them, down to the end in some stores.

That Boise store I showed the photos of was a really large store, very large for Skaggs/Osco and seemed more like a Payless than a Skaggs/Osco. The different format makes sense.
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Re: Rite Aid locations with Osco interiors

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote:I never remember Osco having a cosmetics counter but that may pre-date me. Longs had them, down to the end in some stores.

That Boise store I showed the photos of was a really large store, very large for Skaggs/Osco and seemed more like a Payless than a Skaggs/Osco. The different format makes sense.
That store was built as a Skaggs, so that drop ceiling flower thing was probably original to them. Osco, as a standalone store, had a very short run in Boise, maybe two years at the most. (The name existed in Boise previously only on Buttrey stores but when Osco took over, the Osco name disappeared from Buttrey) The stores were PayLess by the time I left in 1988. I don't believe Osco spent much on remodeling short of maybe some new signs and minor repainting. PayLess had the stores just long enough to do a more thorough interior repainting. Rite Aid has had them for nearly 20 years, and the stores they still have shouldn't still look like a Skaggs, PayLess, Pay 'N Save, or Thrifty by now. Some have aged better than others, but the unremodeled ones are looking pretty tired.

Rite Aid is capable of doing some pretty thorough remodels. One good example is the store in Longview, WA, which is a former Pay 'N save and the only remaining building from the demolished Triangle Mall. Other than the differences in the exterior, you can't clearly tell the history of this one.
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