If you want personal service along with your medicines and first aid, it’s time to talk to your local pharmacist.
In the last few years, a lot has been written about the expansion of chain pharmacies into our North Bay towns. Whether you’re for or against a particular project, or advocate for the free market or the corner market, the fact remains that a persistent band of local, family-owned pharmacies is working overtime to prove they have more to offer their patients than those big-name chains. Here’s a look at the history and services of a few of these locally owned operations and what they’re doing in our 24/7, “gotta have it now” world, to keep customers coming back.
Smith’s St. Helena Pharmacy
Jeff and Debbie Hansen of St. Helena first met in the early 1980s as students at University of the Pacific in Stockton. As a young couple, they settled in Petaluma, but Jeff’s job as a pharmacist for a chain store meant a daily commute to and from Vallejo with no hope of a job transfer in sight. After a few years, friends told them about a small pharmacy for sale on Main Street in St. Helena, and they decided to make the leap to being their own bosses.
That first purchase, in 1988, was called Nu-Way Drugs. Nu-Way was the smallest of three independent pharmacies operating in St. Helena at the time. The largest was Smith’s St. Helena Pharmacy, opened by Walter Smith in 1874. In 1994, pharmacist John Traulsen, then owner of Smith’s, was ready to retire and contacted the Hansens hoping to sell the business to them to keep it independent. The Hansens decided to close Nu-Way and merge the two businesses under the Smith’s name.
Over the years, Smith’s had been more than a local source for prescriptions and health supplies, and that tradition continues. As the store’s buyer, Debbie stocks greeting cards, office supplies and a wide variety of toys and gift items. “We provide what can’t be found easily in Upper Napa Valley, so people don’t have to drive to Napa,” she explains. “If the kids think of something they need for a school project the next morning, you can come to the pharmacy and get whatever they need.”
Besides the pharmacy, Smith’s biggest department is pet food. It stocks an extensive collection of pet accessories and premium pet food lines, including rabbit and bird food, and Debbie has become a trusted resource for pet owners. “A lot of people come to us with questions about food and nutrition for their pets instead of going to their vets. So that’s become a very profitable area in the store and something we’re always trying to improve on and learn about,” she says.
Like most family-owned pharmacies, Smith’s keeps to regular business hours (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday) and is closed on Sundays, but that doesn’t mean the Hansens’ work days are done. Beyond staying on top of prescriptions and questions coming in, there’s the inevitable paperwork of running a small business, especially one as regulated as a pharmacy.
“Jeff has a work ethic beyond anyone I’ve ever seen,” says Debbie with pride. “He leaves the house at 8 a.m. and sometimes doesn’t come home until 10 p.m., six days per week.”
While providing the personal service of a small town pharmacy, the Hansens say they also work hard to keep up with the big guys when it comes to customer convenience. Smith’s customers can place refill requests by phone or online 24 hours per day, and the store has a cell phone app so you can even request refills from your smartphone.
In 2006, the Hansens (along with business partner Robert Havens) decided to expand their pharmacy services by purchasing Silverado Pharmacy in Calistoga. “The owner up there [at Silverado Pharmacy] had been semi-retired and not running the business to its full extent, and there were some rumblings in Calistoga that residents needed a chain or another pharmacy in town,” recalls Jeff. Long’s Drugs (now owned by CVS) was interested in building a store along Highway 128 outside of downtown, and Calistoga city officials were looking for ways to protect their downtown shopping district while ensuring residents had the services they needed.
“We felt like we could help the city by running the pharmacy to its full potential, giving the citizens of Calistoga a pharmacy and eliminating the need for Long’s to come into the Upper Valley and hurt other businesses,” says Jeff.
In 2010, the Hansens and Havens tried once again to revive a locally owned pharmacy, but faced a much tougher challenge. Owens Healthcare, a small chain based in Redding, was operating a pharmacy at a site next to Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa. The store had housed several small pharmacies over the years, going back to Preston’s Pharmacy more than 60 years earlier. Jeff says they contacted Owens Healthcare to see if it was interested in selling, but the chain eventually opted to close the store down in April 2010 and sell its files to CVS.
Despite this, the Hansens and Havens decided to move ahead with renting the spot and reopening a pharmacy in the same location. “We tried to reopen as quickly as possible, but the red tape of trying to start a pharmacy stretched from three months to more than six months, and in that gap of time, the people who’d transferred to CVS or the other independent pharmacy in town didn’t feel the need to come back as fast as we’d hoped,” says Jeff. After more than a year of trying to make a go of it, the store was shuttered in November 2011.
Even with the challenges of running an independent pharmacy in a world of increased competition, Jeff insists the benefits of working for himself have far outweighed any of the downfalls. His commute to Smith’s is now two blocks, and he and Debbie’s three daughters have grown up in the family business.
“I really enjoy what I do, and from day one, I’ve never really watched the clock,” he says. “When I worked for a chain, it was always, ‘When do I get out of here?’ Since I started running a business myself, I’ve never felt that.”
Family Drug
Back in 1952, pharmacist Mary Doud opened Family Drug in Napa, providing for both the medicinal and cosmetic needs of generations of Napa residents. Doud’s store was the place for local ladies to find high-end cosmetics from makers like Dior and Elizabeth Arden, along with advice on how to keep their complexions clear and youthful. At one point, the store carried more than 200 types of perfume.
In 1976, Doud hired pharmacist Tom Gracia to manage the pharmacy while she focused on the rest of the store. Gracia can’t say exactly when he and Doud became partners, only that she loved what she did so much that she worked almost right up until she passed away in 1992. Today, Gracia is determined to offer customers that same level of personal service and expert advice.
“I think people come here because we know them and take care of them,” says Gracia. “I’ve been here for 36 years, so I know customers who are now grandparents, and the kids who are now parents and their kids. And now those kids are starting to come in with their kids.”
Family Drug is truly a family affair. Currently, one of Gracia’s sons and one of his sisters work in the store with him, though many other family members have worked there over the years, as well.
Gracia says he does a bit of advertising for the store, but most new business comes to him via word of mouth. He also maintains relationships with the physicians, physical therapists and hospital discharge planners in town, who rely on him to be a resource for supplies and good advice for their patients. “They call us frequently asking, ‘Do you have this? Can you help my patient do that?’ And then they send them over here to us,” he says.
Family Drug carries an extensive selection of community health and home health care supplies, such as athletic knee braces, bathing safety aids for the elderly and compression garments, and always has at least one trained fitter onsite. It’s also a designated hospice pharmacy and provides local delivery.
Gracia says his father was a pharmacist, so he grew up in a pharmacy just like Family Drug, helping out since he was 14. “This is what I like to do,” he says. “I like the interaction and the satisfaction of helping people every day.”
Tuttle’s Pharmacy
Another local pharmacy keeping it all in the family since 1946 is Tuttle’s Pharmacy in Santa Rosa. Current owner Robert Pellegrini has been a pharmacist there since 1978, having taken over the business from his father, who’d taken it over from Robert’s grandfather in the 1950s.
Tuttle’s has seen locations open and close over the years, but currently operates two stores in northeast Santa Rosa, one on Hoen Avenue and one, known as Tuttle’s Doyle Park Pharmacy, on Sonoma Avenue.
Pellegrini’s shops, like the man himself, clearly display a sense of humor. San Francisco Giants bobble heads nod among the vitamins. Pictures of Little League teams sponsored over the years hang on a counter beneath flying pigs and a scene of ducks from below.
Asked how he came to take on the family business, Pellegrini shrugs his shoulders and smiles.
“There were seven kids in my family and someone had to do it,” he says. “My dad had put all that work in and no one else was going to do it, so I thought, ‘Sure, I’ll go to pharmacy school.’”
Pellegrini has made sure to continue the tradition of offering free local delivery, a service many of the pharmacy’s elderly patients have come to rely on. He points out that his staff, some of whom have been with him for more than 20 years, go out of their way to help people and provide the all-too-unusual service of answering the phone themselves rather than relying on a machine to do it. Customers can visit Tuttle’s website to refill prescriptions or check out the health and wellness resource library.
And while the store is closed on Sundays, it’s not uncommon for Pellegrini to be there working or out delivering prescriptions himself to patients who find themselves without an urgent medication.
“It’s tough when Walgreen’s is open 24 hours, but you can get me anytime,” says Pellegrini. “I’m here about 16 hours every day, and I’m easy to get to if you need me on the weekend.”
I ask Pellegrini, with the conveniences of pharmacies in supermarkets and the like, what keeps customers coming back to his shops?
“I don’t ask them,” he laughs. “I’m too busy. But I think they keep coming back because we treat them right.”
Debbi Ling, who handles bookkeeping for the stores, is more direct: “It’s like a ‘Cheers!’ situation,” she says. “We know people by name. In some cases, we know their cars when they pull into the parking lot. They trust us and rely on our service.”
A few years ago, she adds, the county changed its medical coverage and began requiring employees to use a large, chain store (or mail order) for prescriptions. Not long after, Memorial Hospital (located almost directly across the street from Tuttle’s Sonoma Avenue store) did the same. In both instances, Debbie relates, “we had many longtime, loyal customers come to us—so upset, some in tears—over [these decisions]. Some have opted to keep coming to us, even though it means a higher cost to them, because they want to support a local business. That’s a testament to the high regard they have for Robert and the whole Tuttle’s staff.
“It was hard. We definitely struggled for a while. But we’re part of this community, and we found a way to bounce back. We have too many customers who depend on what we offer.”
Health First!
Just off the Windsor Green in downtown Windsor stands an example of the next generation of locally owned pharmacies. Opened nine years ago by pharmacist Mark Burger and his wife, health educator Terri Burger, Health First! Pharmacy and Compounding Center is both an integrative compounding pharmacy and a community health education resource.
The store’s large front windows act as display boards for general health and event reminders, while circular displays outside the front door offer free information sheets on various health concerns. The aroma inside is decidedly herbal rather than medicinal, as you sit at a front table near a wall of books available for purchase or perusing.
While some traditional prescriptions are available, the core of the pharmacy practice is compounding (customizing medications to each patient). The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines pharmacy compounding as “a practice in which a licensed pharmacist combines, mixes or alters ingredients in response to a prescription to create a medication tailored to the medical needs of an individual patient.”
There are a surprising number of reasons why patients may require compounding services. At Health First!, a patient may be able to get a prescription in a form that can be rubbed onto skin or dissolved under the tongue for direct delivery to the bloodstream if swallowing medication is an issue, or for localized relief of pain or inflamation. Medicines can be customized to avoid allergic reactions to additives, colorings and gluten (which may not be listed on the label) or enhance bioavailability (the amount of drug entering the bloodstream). Sometimes, as many as five medications can be combined into a single dose, saving patients money and time. Even veterinary prescriptions can be individualized (to the species and size of the animal).
Terri says it all comes down to the question, “How can we customize [the medication] to give the patient a better outcome?”
As a pharmacist with this specialized training, Mark Burger sometimes travels around the country giving lectures on the subject, but is more often than not found working in the compounding lab or in the consultation room, where he sits down with patients and their families to review prescriptions, supplements and over-the-counter medications to look for unhealthy interactions. Many medications can cause depletions of nutrition, vitamins, minerals and other co-factors, and these can be the source of adverse reactions or more illness (like anemia, soft bones, slow wound healing or suppressed immune system). Mark helps patients identify these potential problems and mitigate them with dietary or lifestyle changes, supplements or herbs. Customers can stop by or call the pharmacy to make an appointment to sit down and discuss the big picture of what’s going on with their health—currently and historically—so he can help them make a plan (to sleep better, lose weight, address stress, counter drug-nutrient depletions or build up their immune systems and get the help they need. Sometimes, Burger provides references to local doctors.
“Ordinarily when you go to a pharmacist, all you’re looking for is how to take your medication and whether there are any side effects. But most pharmacists know a lot more than that,” says Terri. “We call what we do ‘functional pharmacy,’ because we want to restore the function of the system, not just put a Band-Aid over the symptoms—like putting duct tape over the check engine light but never addressing the cause. Medications may quiet down a symptom, but if it hasn’t addressed the cause, then there are often downstream adverse effects on the body.”
Terri is an approachable, friendly presence in the store, often welcoming customers by name and asking after their health. She considers herself and the whole front-end staff as educators, trained in directing customers to the resources they need to take charge of their own health.
“I think you’re really underserving people when they come in and all you do is hand them something, but they don’t walk away with any new knowledge or power,” she says. “More often than not, they either came in specifically for that help or they’re surprised and happy to find out that Health First! is there for them.”
Something more meaningful
Just like many small business owners, these local pharmacists will tell you they’re not in it for the money or the enviable hours. A common refrain from each is that they find great satisfaction in the relationships they’re able to form and people they’re able to help in this line of work.
Each is closed on Sundays, but in an emergency, the pharmacist just may bring medicine to your door. Or you may leave with advice on caring for an aging relative instead of a roll of coupons.
Terri Burger says that, in these days of 12-minute office visits, drive-up pharmacy windows and unmanned prescription pick-up kiosks with automated pharmacy services, everyone at Health First! tries to connect with patients on a personal level, because they know the patient will feel the difference. “We all go to big box stores sometimes, but it doesn’t fill you up,” she concludes. “Life can be so busy that, when something’s more meaningful, it’s a good thing.”
