If you thought getting a prescription or finding anybody working at a CVS was tough, Walgreens is next.

Not too surprised. The company once made famous by the book Good to Great has been on the decline for some time now since their last great CEO, Dan Jordnt, left in 2003. I can say confidently that Dan was the best CEO I've ever worked for. People cried when he left. Well into the 2000's, they were still depending on little old ladies to come in with their 30 coupons and grocery shop while they waited for their prescriptions to be filled. They failed at mail-order pharmacy. CVS destroyed them when photo went digital. I remember executives proclaiming that customers wouldn't go to Costco or Walmart for prescriptions because they wanted the convenience Walgreens provided. I'll never forget riding an elevator in the early 2000's and overhearing executives discuss shutting the main website down because e-commerce for pharmacy didn't have a future. Private Equity is going to strip them down and probably destroy them. I'm not sure if this changed, but Walgreens was a unionized pharmacy, meaning that their profits on pills were always going to be lower than non-unionized pharmacies like Costco and Walmart.

Fun fact, at one point, Walgreens was the second largest user of satellite technology with the US government being the first.

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I'm guessing the quality of the beef will fall quickly.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Wasn’t the strategy at one point in the 90s to have a Walgreens every mile from one another?

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Elections have consequences.

It felt that way. They were way ahead of other retailers with being able to locate stores for optimal traffic. Several times, they would build a new store across the street from an existing store, with the plan to close the existing store. Instead, both would profit and both stores would stay open. The expansion was driven by the significant rise in generic drugs, plus the increase in the number of prescriptions that doctors were writing. It was almost if they couldn't grow fast enough to meet demand.

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Surprisingly you make it sound like their downfall was Hub Arkush blindness.

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Elections have consequences.

that was a lucrative strategy for 25 years. now it's life cycle has ended.

Where'd you fill your prescriptions pal?

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Their more recent strategy was to locate across the street from CVS. I’m not sure what the thought process was on that.

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Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.- JD Vance
If you committed violence on that day, obviously, you shouldn’t be pardoned.- JD Vance on the J-6 insurrectionists

I think I remember Deni$ being pro-Walgreens stock or something because they had so much prime real estate.

I owned CVS for a while. What Walgreens did was move their locations to prime corners. I never owned the stock.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Beginning of the end was when they dumped Wags.

Fun fact, if memory serves the Arlington Heights Olive Garden which CH referenced earlier today in a different post is on the site of a former Wags, as was the now-shuttered Buffalo Grove IHOP on Lake-Cook.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

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walgreens pays a friend of mine $33,000 in rent, a month. they pay all the property taxes and maintenance. 65 more years for that lease. constantly relaying asphalt, keeping those lots pristine for the older customers who fear potholes damaging their buicks.

News here just said the PE firm is to help take them back private. For what that’s worth.

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Elections have consequences.

Was there a restaurant at Harlem and Addison? Its been a long time. Dumping the restaurants was a huge reason they grew by billions as it was part of focusing on the goldmine that was pharmacy & generic drugs.

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For a while they were using the McDonald's model and buying the land rather than lease, which is why they left a lot of the strip malls.

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My friend dated a Walgreen daughter back in high school. She was a nice person and seemed easy to get along with. He should have never let her get away. Instead, he married some hick who has been a problem for him for 20 years

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

They sure as hell built like that in the late 90s in the south suburbs where I grew up. Bought up prime real estate in Matteson, Chicago Heights, Park Forest and Sauk Village right in time for everyone who could afford it to get the hell out of that area. Couldn't have helped their bottom line long term.

belmont and harlem.

Now wait just a minute, I drive a Buick…..

The AH Wags was in Town & Country plaza across the street from the Olive Garden. I grew up right by there. It went to a Boston Market in the 90's, then a Verizon store (I think). Its a Raising Cane's now...When I'm down there, I still like to go to Gatsby's for old time sake, and that's the other side of Palatine Road.

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The Verizon store replaced the Boston Market and is still there (I know because I was at that store a few months ago to get a new phone and I figured out how to salvage my old phone's data before the employee did). The Raising Cane's was just parking lot, I think. If something used to be on that parcel, it's too distant a memory for me to claw back.

I remember the old Town & Country mall. My parents took me to Just For Fun and Garibaldi's a lot. It was a weird little pseudo-mall with a little concourse and everything, but there are no pictures of it anywhere to jog my memory.

They finally tore down the old freestanding Gap, by the way.

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Ah, okay. Was there a family restaurant at Harlem and Addison? Peacock?

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Yep I stand corrected.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

When our kids were little we took them to that old Town and Country. I can't recall what was in there that they found so fascinating; I am going to have to remember to ask them. Maybe some store where they purchased Pokemon cards?

Chase is moving from Northpoint to that Gap site.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

CORRECT

They had a very simple business model at the turn of the century.

Build stores as fast as you can where the population is trending toward an average age of 51 years old.

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That mall had the best Old Country Buffet

There was the arcade, Garibaldi's, Kroch's and Brentano's, a pet store where I got my first (and only) pet fish, and some gift shops. The anchors were Service Merchandise and a Lord & Taylor outlet. My guess is the Kroch's & Brentano's became a Waldenbooks or one of those tabletop game stores where weird guys and precisely one hot girl get together to play D&D, and that's where the Pokemon cards came in.

Just for Fun had skeeball and the Bozo buckets, and those were big draws for me as a kid. I remember there was a big arcade that opened over around Randhurst in like '95, because I remember going to someone's birthday party there and playing Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. I can't remember the name. The tokens said TIME OUT but it was not Time Out.

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My wife's engagement ring came from that Service Merchandise. As I recall that is when all the ads stated something to the effect of, "you aren't a REAL man unless you spend three month's salary on an engagement ring."

So I gave her the choice of either the mega-engagement ring or a down payment on a house (that we are still in). She chose wisely.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."