Phar-Mor

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Dave
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Post by Dave »

I happened across a PharMor newspaper tab from 1995 yesterday. It struck me as odd compared to today's tabs because it was in Tueday's paper, not Sunday, had prices good only Wednesday through Sunday, instead of a ful week, and covered a pretty large geographic area, like all of Virginia, both Carolinas, Maryland, and Georgia, instead of one or two metro areas. Also, it listed stores and telephone numbers but no addresses other than shopping center names - and in the case where there was only one store in town, not even that - "Norfolk, Virginia" and "West End Richmond, Virginia".

Very inefficient for both the customer who might turn to calling to find out where the store is and for the employees answering the phone.
mojavewolfpup

Post by mojavewolfpup »

storewanderer wrote: I also know they had at least two or three stores in Las Vegas
The one Phar-Mor I remember being in when I was very young way back when in the early 1990's here in las vegas was located at the following address:

4505 West Charleston Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89102

after it closed, it kept it's signage and up until about 2001/2002? (before the walmart invasion/takeover, oops, did I did say that?) the 2 main signs for the shopping center kept the phar-mor logo up also.

For the longest time, you could drive by the front of it and off the main entrance tilted at a slight angle due to the buildings construction was alot of glassed in windows (I can't remember fully what that was used for?) but you could see all the shopping carts used at the store stored in that glassed in area.

Alas, much like the company itself, the building was gotten rid of quickly. When walmart came in the shopping center, they tore down that building, and many more. Aside from the phar-mor building, there was also a service merchandise, and another store called computer city. The service merchandise got torn down in all this also (I would estimate about 100,000+ square feet at least) was torn down for a walmart, lowes, etc.

Out of the remaining "original" buildings this shopping center had, a petsmart, odd bookstore in the old computer city building, and many opposite the walmart near a bar (smart and final, etc) only remain.

Across the street from all this is a 99 cent only store, it used to be a albertsons, I loved that store! My favorite part of the store for some reason was always the frozen food sections, where you had a freezer case and merchandise the whole length of it above the case 8)

It was very obviously 60's/70's store design, and was very cool! It was a old lucky store before the albertsons take over of lucky. I miss that store also and regret not taking photos of it before it's closure.

The old lucky sign on the shopping center's main sign actually shorted and caught fire once, was eery, but also funny looking also for a while. Amazing that the whole sign didn't burn, it was (and still is iirc) a all wood sign!

I'll put my research skills to work and see what information I can dig up about all that I mentioned above here :) I love a good research challenge!
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storewanderer
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Post by storewanderer »

Speaking of those freezer cases with a whole line of products running above them, Grocery Outlet has those in a store they opened here maybe last summer, or the summer before.
javelin
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Post by javelin »

danielh_512 wrote:Phar-Mor. The Youngstown, OH based drug superstore chain that folded a few years back? In California? They never got out of the Midwest, that I'm aware of.
We had one in Victorville, CA...opened for less than a year. Really cool place unlike any other drug store I'd ever seen. They had a touch screen kiosk where you could get coupons for whatever you wanted. I remember loading up on stuff when they were going out of business.

Then it was turned into an Expo (Vons warehouse type store), and when that went out, the store sat vacant for 10 years until it was recently opened as a Hispanic theme grocery store called Vallarta.
iBob

Post by iBob »

The old Super Phar-Mor in Hagerstown MD just had its exterior signs removed about a year or so ago. But the Phar-Mor sign is still on the shopping centers sign (Its the biggest sign on the pole) and the ads are still in the windows. The shopping center has really started to show its age since the Weis Market moved out about 6 years ago.
J-Man
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Fontana, CA

Post by J-Man »

There was definitely a Phar-Mor in Fontana, CA, just north of I-10 at the Sierra (I think) exit. It was in a shopping center along with an Expo (Vons experiemental club-like store.)
veryscarypeople

Post by veryscarypeople »

We had a Phar-Mor in Wilkes-Barre, PA in the East End Centre. I want to say it closed in 2000? Maybe 2001.

It's now owned by the city and they use it to house drug rehabilitation programs and other community oriented events.

The shopping center it was in still stays pretty busy with a Price Chopper and Big Lots continuing to do business in it.
Toby Radloff
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Re: Phar-Mor

Post by Toby Radloff »

As for Youngstown area Phar-Mor's, Marc's took over the Austintown location...Marc's is a similar operation to Phar-Mor. A flea market, which recycled part of the Phar-Mor signage (I think the flea market was called "Flea-Mor"), is in the former Niles location across from Eastwood Mall, and a Sparkle market took over a former Phar-Mor on Market Street in Youngstown...that location was a former A&P centennial that was re-facaded, and I think another grocery was in there prior to Phar-Mor. The Belmont Avenue store is still vacant. The former Strouss department store in downtown Youngstown, which once housed Phar-Mor's main offices, is still called "Phar-Mor Center", which once housed several shops and a food court on the department store's first floor. It was part of an urban renewal effort, where part of Federal Street was bricked over and turned into an outdoor commons. However, downtown Youngstown has, in recent years, been pretty much dead, and Federal Street, where it was bricked in, was since reopened to traffic.
kris-alyx
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Re: Phar-Mor

Post by kris-alyx »

well there were some phar-mor stores in virginia there was one in chesterfield county near the arberitum on midlothian turnpike & also there was another one on west broad street near borders books, & one in colonial heights at southpark in the k-mart shoping centre where staples is now & there was one in roanoke va but i don't & can't remember where it was.
TenPoundHammer
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Re: Phar-Mor

Post by TenPoundHammer »

Phar-Mor had stores in Michigan for maybe one year at the most. From what I recall, they had two in Saginaw. One was the anchor to the now-vacant Fort Saginaw Mall, having taken over a space that was originally Federal's and later Burlington Coat Factory. Burlington Coat pulled out of this space around 1991, moving ironically enough to a new strip mall across from Fashion Square Mall that also had a Phar-Mor in it. This plaza also had Hills (later Handy Andy, torn down for Lowe's a while back) and Kessel (later Kroger, now closed).

There was also a Phar-Mor anchor at Frenchtown Square Mall in Monroe. This is a Cafaro mall; Cafaro seems to have had a LOT of Phar-Mor anchored properties. (Small wonder, both Cafaro and Phar-Mor were both based in Youngstown.) This store closed early on and is now a second Elder-Beerman.

Phar-Mor also built a store in Westland near Detroit. They pulled out just as the store was completed, and Jo-Ann Fabrics and Dollar Tree split the space.

According to this article - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_12511758 - they also had stores in Taylor and Flint. No idea where they were, though; the Flint one must not have been open long, as it's not in any of the phone books I have.
Last edited by TenPoundHammer on 29 Oct 2009 00:36, edited 1 time in total.
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MikeRa
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Re: Phar-Mor

Post by MikeRa »

We had three Phar-mor's in Philadelphia/bucks County, PA. Two of them were always Phar-mor, the other was a Pharmhouse that converted to Phar-mor. The locations were:
  • Franklin Mils Mall (site is still vacant after 5 years)
  • Bustelton avenue and Cottman Avenue (was former basement level of Gimbel Brothers, it is now the basement level of Sears)
  • Levittown Shopping Center (Don't know what it was before Pharmhouse, but it has long since been demolished with the Shopping center and replaced by the modern Levittown Town Center, which has The Home Depot and Super Walmart)
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