Lovin’ Spoonful: How One Independent Drug Store Sets Expectations High, Keeps Prices Low and Fends Off ‘Big, Bad Corporate America’

When asked about his most prized possession, Dana Shore, owner and manager of , will not reference the plaques on the wall in his office, nor the certificates framed on his counter. He won’t display his collection of beakers preserved the family-owned drug store opened which open more than a half-century ago.

Beyond the capsules, powders, and pill bottles stacked in the makeshift laboratory behind the pharmacy counter, he opens a small cabinet door. Taped there is a two-foot long collage of acquisition letters, sales pitches and business cards from all the corporations that have attempted to buy him out—and failed.

In the last ten years, CVS, Shaws, Brooks, Target, Crown Pharmacy and OSCO have all mailed their offers or sent their representatives through the pharmacy’s doors. Each one receives the same response from Shore:

“We’ve been here for 57 years. We know what we’re doing.” 

Looking for a way to provide for his family after the Second World War, Dana’s father, Leo, opened Shore Drug Store 57 years ago. At the time, Leo’s brothers — Dana’s uncles — also owned independent drug stores in Medford and Cambridge. From an early age, Dana’s father and uncles instilled him with a strong work ethic and commitment to customer service.

“My dad worked until ten o’clock  every night and kept the store open seven days a week,” Shore remembered.

In his early teens, Shore began working in the candy department of the store, back when the pharmacy still had a soda fountain in the back. He took over as owner and manager in the 1980’s.

Now the Belmont Street pharmacy is the last in the family’s legacy. The Shore Drug Stores in Medford and Cambridge both closed along with a slew of other family-owned pharmacies that either went out of business or succumbed to large corporations. In 2011, Shore Drug Store in Belmont is one in a handful of independent pharmacies still in existence in the area.  

“Buyers don’t want to keep businesses intact,” Shore explained. “They want to shut the store down, take our customers, push us out and slap their own name on the door.” 

As Shore looks out beyond the pharmacy counter, two customers stop to rest at the table and chairs he’s set up for them beneath the orange awnings of his shop. Customers peruse the aisles of locally produced soaps and brightly colored knick-knacks. The music of The Lovin’ Spoonful, the Monkees and the Beatles plays over the intercom.

“Yeah, you could say we’re taking a stand against big, bad corporate America,” he adds with a smile.  

So how has Shore Drug Store survived buyouts and the changes in the industry to remain profitable against big name pharmacies? 

Actually knowing his customers

“We give our customers more personal attention," pharmacist Melissa Gibbons said. “We go out of our way to make sure our service is fast and friendly. We actually know who they are.”

Shore says a “competent staff and superb service” has been the cornerstone of the independent drug store since it’s inception.

“Can’t call a chain store, you’ll get a machine,” he said. “When people call us, they are shocked that they actually get a response.”

Pharmacist Gibbons said that customers often complain about long wait times, prescription shortages and the lack of communication at “brand-name” drug stores.

“Here, people leave happy, not frustrated,” she said. 

Shore prides himself on exceeding customer expectations. Beyond filling prescriptions, Shore Drug Store hand-makes capsules and creams in-house. Prescriptions that is not commercially available. Prescriptions that Shore says, “CVS won’t even look at.” Prescriptions like squaric acid, which Shore produces for two area children with alopecia, a skin condition that causes rapid hair loss.  

“If people ask for it, they need it,” Shore said. “We’re going to find a way to make it since they can’t go anywhere else to get it.

Shore Drug Store also offers an in-store Post Office and express mail service for customers’ convenience. And, like the Post Office, the pharmacy delivers come rain, snow, sleet or hail. Shore recalls strapping the snow chains on his Pathfinder through many a blizzard to ensure that customers receive the prescriptions they need. Shore and his staff hand-deliver prescriptions when necessary, tucking in small candies or fresh grown vegetables from his garden into their packages.    

Their managers’ mentality has permeated to Shore employees. During his breaks, cashier Sal Savatorio can be found outside the shop, cigarette in one hand, feather duster in the other, cleaning the signs in the store window, unasked, and stopping to chat with customers as they enter the store.

The store’s extra efforts have not gone unnoticed judging by the thick stack of thank-you cards accumulating on the pharmacists’ desk.

“Because of you I made it to Cambridge without my foot hurting,” one elderly customer wrote. “Your sincerity has been a blessing. It always alleviates my stress,” said another. The crayon inscription on a child’s handmade card put it simply: “You’re the best.”

Shore says the steady stream of loyal customers has kept his business afloat through the recession, the changes in the industry and the current rash of corporate buyouts. If anything, he says that big business has helped him.     

“I know the way they run, the way they treat their customers. Our service isn’t the same—it’s better. The more people that sell out, the more people that will eventually come to me,” he said, surveying his shop. “When people come here, they tend to stay.”