This post was originally published on this site
“Heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.” That’s how Howie Cohen felt when Bartell Drugs faded into local history this year, with new owner CVS announcing the rebrand of the chain’s last 20 stores. He wasn’t just a local who loved his hometown corner store and pharmacy; Seattle-born Cohen had worked at Bartell’s since he was 18. He rose from cashier to store manager and eventually a chain-wide category manager who found, bought, and dreamed up specialty items for the store’s iconic gift aisle.
Once the country’s oldest family-owned drugstore chain—Bartell’s was founded a year after Washington statehood—the store always carried goofier gifts and wilder candies than any boring national brand. Cohen found a way to stock the shelves with smoked salmon gift boxes decorated with work from Indigenous artists and started collector crazes over Seattle neighborhood mugs. As the holiday season swells with locals searching for memorable gifts, Cohen and the rest of Seattle will mourn the loss of the 135-year-old institution and its eclectic mix of tchotchkes, toys, and trinkets.
As a teenager, I knew [Bartell Drugs] for the candy aisle. When I worked in college, I knew it for the employee discount on Top Ramen and various canned foods.
There were areas where we just had more than our national competitors…areas where we deliberately went really deep on our assortment.
We were known for getting some difficult, uncommon things. Mackintosh’s toffee that we would bring in from Canada, Violet Crumbles—you could always find Violet Crumbles in our store.
If you ever saw unusual toys or housewares in the stores, those are me.
I carried a lot of J. P. Patches merchandise. And if you’re not from here, you don’t know who J. P. Patches is. That clown is a big deal here.
I did a coffee mug of the viaduct one year. I wanted something that gave a fond remembrance portrayal of the viaduct.
We did neighborhood mugs one year. They were so popular. They sold out in a heartbeat. But what I didn’t expect was we’ve got a lot of letters and phone calls about neighborhoods we didn’t do.
I’m quoting one [letter] here: “Everybody knows that Greenwood is a far superior neighborhood to Wallingford.” I don’t know that everybody knows that?
Seattleites are different. Seattleites are weird in a good way. Just about anything Sasquatch [did] great.
My most popular, most well-known item is the Fremont Troll Chia Pet.
I called my rep and said, Could you do a custom Chia Pet? And they’re like, Yeah, but the minimum’s too high. It’d be like 10,000 pieces minimum.
Our 10,000 trolls sold out in a couple of weeks.
At the Fifth and Olive store, people would go in there just for the women at the register. Friends referred to them as the aunties…they felt like part of your family.
We were delivering prescriptions long before home delivery was something people did. When I was a store manager, I drove to retirement communities around my store to deliver their prescriptions.
I had one person who, I believe, just ordered things just so I’d sit and chat with him every week. He’d invite me in for a Diet Coke.
A lot of unique things contributed to the fall at the end, and the pandemic was really kind of the nail that drove us under.
There are things gone [from Seattle] that are super sad, but I also kind of welcome growth and development.
I totally get why people want to move here and live here; it’s great. Why wouldn’t someone want to move here?
It’s challenging that some of the greatest things about this region—the art, the music, the people that are doing some unique, different things—are priced out of the market.
One of the [Bartell’s] owners at one point said, like, Drugstores aren’t cool. You know, we’re never gonna be cool. And I’m like, Oh, I disagree.
It was the drugstore everyone went to.