08/06/2024
Dear Friends,
The time has finally come. The building is slated for demolition and we have been given notice to vacate. Our last day at Oak St will be Aug 27, 2024. This will close the chapter on a piece of pharmacy history dating back to 1960.
Oakridge Drugs was opened in 1960 by Harry Caine and Jerry Morris. They later sold the business and it continued as Oakridge Drugs until it shut down at the in early 2006. We took over the site in April 2006 and opened as Pharmasave on Sept 6, 2006.
The first three years were TOUGH. We were young, naïve and admittedly, we came in with rose-coloured glasses. There were days where we had ZERO prescriptions. We had lines of credit, loans, mortgages AND zero income. It sucked! There was no silver lining at that time. When the store was closed, we worked other jobs to make ends meet. We had basically sunk too much money into the store to allow it to fail. The neighbourhood was amazingly supportive and we got many words of encouragement. After the third year, we started catching breaks here and there. Somehow, we managed to gain a pretty good reputation. Through friends of the business, we got more new customers, who became our friends and in turn referred more customers to us. We also managed to secure a post office outlet and that really helped people know that we existed. Over time, our compounding service became more established, and we were getting referrals from physicians, hospitals and other pharmacies. Six years later, in 2012, we opened our second pharmacy- Pharmasave at Main & 30th.
We knew once the building was sold in 2017 that it was only a matter of time before we had to vacate. Our initial goal was to remain in the neighbourhood; however, that has not been feasible. As such, we will be moving our pharmacy business to our sister store at Main & 30th. For some of our clients, this will be a major inconvenience. We understand. We provide deliveries and the familiar faces and voices that you are used to will remain the same. We hope to see you at Main & 30th .
Thank you for the past 17 years. We love you all.
