Of course you all remember Long’s Drugs. They had over 500 locations before they sold their company to CVS in 2008.
Did you know? Long’s is still open, but only in the State of Hawaii, where they currently have 40 stores.
UPDATE: Thanks to “S” for the following photos:
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… wish they were back… CVS does not fill their shoes imho
Best Drug Store I ever did business with.
They’re still open in HI.
But, the Longs in Hawaii look a lot like CVS inside…
Long’s Drug and Payless Drug were far superior to the present national chains. When they were sold, our region lost some excellent retailers. We had better prices and selection, in those days.
Long’s is now only in Honolulu, Hawaii…just one store!!
Not true. They have about 70 in Hawaii. I have many friends who live in Hawaii and have confirmed this. Try again.
We drove past two of them the week before last on Kauai, one in Lihue and the other near Poipu Beach. They are CVS labeled as Long’s (we’ve been in both of them in the past).
Well in all fairness, the Longs name is alive in Hawaii, but if you go in the stores it is identical to the CVS stores on the mainland. Long gone are the quirky things from Longs like the sporting good aisle with fishing poles and reels. The Hawaii stores do have some “local” items, but it’s not like the Longs some of us remember.
The good old days.
Yes. A long time ago.
Good Memories…
Ink Pen’s from the little vending dispenser…
Playing with the Tube Tester…
I sent some pic’s of a Matchbook to the Claycord news desk; don’t know if they are compatible with this system…
I’ve also several Long’s Drugs Photo Development Envelopes from the San Pablo store in the 60’s. Didn’t send those in as they my disclose my secret identity…
🙂
Long’s in Hawaii is Long’s in name only. It is 100% CVS. They figured out that Hawaiian’s disliked the ownership and name change even more than mainlanders.
Yep, Mrs. Long is also Hawaiian, so they have/had a sense of pride in the “Local” Hawaiian company.
I miss the old Longs stores. CVS sucks compared to them, lost a good drug store for the K Mart version of a drug store, and sadly that is insulting K Mart
The moment CVS took over they raised the prices of everything. A few months later CVS hung a sign saying “New lower prices.” I spot checked a fw things. The prices were the same higher prices they introduced.
I forgot how prices were when CVS first took over. Now they give you so many coupons, and you can combine coupons, which most retailers don’t let you do, so for the most part I find their prices pretty good. I sometimes shop at Walgreens, have a phone number with them as well, but rarely at Rite Aid. Mostly CVS because there are a couple of stores close to where I live or shop.
Charleston.
Nice! I still use Charleston for marking cost or lowest price when I sell things.
I was wondering if someone would mention the Charleston pricing code. When I worked for Long’s in the early 80’s we had to manually put price stickers on every item in the store. No bar codes back then. Charleston = 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 to use for the COST of the item, not what the the retail price was, in case anyone is wondering. So for example an item that cost Long’s $2.99 would have a price code of “HOO”
You bring back memories. I used to “Charleston” the price tags in Longs to see what items really cost! I agree with those who comment that CVS doesn’t come close.
Ah, good memories. Payless had “You be slick” price coding.
Longs was like a big family, many career employees worked there.
Same thing happened in 1992 or 1993 at Pace Membership warehouse (in Pittsburg where Winco is now).
Pace didn’t win the grand opening war & Costco opened before them in Antioch.
We all came to work for a mandatory meeting on a Monday morning……the announcement of closure was given and paychecks were handed out with a two month severance. All out of box display items were sold to employees for 80% off. Many employees were crying, I stayed for 2 more months and drove a forklift and emptied out the place.
Sam’s club eventually purchased the remaining stores (including the one in Concord), then Costco in order to remain competitive merged with Price Club.
What they did to the employees in the headquarters in Walnut Creek should have been criminal. No warning,…no thanks for your service…just we’ve sold the company and will be closing in a few weeks. Horrible way to treatt long time employees. Once the original owners passed away the kids just sold it for the cash…As far as I’m concerned…they did no one but themselves a favor by selling to CVS and leaving a huge community hole.
Longs was actually publicly traded on the NY Stock Exchange. That is how they financed their expansion into Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. I think there was an Alaska store also. The owners were the stockholders at the time. Once the company went public, the family didn’t have as much control as they used to. The company hired outsiders from Safeway and Kroger to be on the board and as company officers, more and more autonomy was taken away from the store managers (who actually did run the stores) and the rest is history.
Do you remember the Rexall Drug where Peet’s Coffee is now in Todos Santos? Between Longs and Rexall I was a happy camper.
I remember the little restaurant attached to it called “The Chef’s Hat” – Great cheeseburgers!
Rexall was the best. Joannie was the best. RIP sweet lady.
Well, I was a Bill’s Drugs user myself. Had everything I needed and the low prices as well
CVS sucks. Bring back Longs!
I miss Longs! Superior to CVS in literally every way. The Longs in Clayton Valley had an impressive book section.
oh how I miss Longs and the caring people working there with their
green aprons
Anyone notice that very basic AM/FM cassette radio for $50 in the 1981 Longs ad? That’s $152.89 in today’s money. That’s a lot of money for a basic cassette player.
Employees at Longs had medical and dental for their family’s. Employees paid cost plus 10 per cent for all items in the store. If you worked in a department you received bonus checks every 6 months. Matched money for profit sharing. They were great employers. Longs also had employee of the month, you were given a pin and 25 dollars.