Rite Aid

OMG this place sucks so bad. There is always a huge line and only one cashier. And the pharmacy blows too. No matter what day, what time or what type of a prescription you are filling be ready to sit for a while and listen to the horrible elevator music. Oh and don’t bother coming right at opening thinking you’ll get out faster the pharmacist is known to be late!

Ummmm I like this Rite Aid… It’s in the neighborhood so I’ve been here several times. I’ve never had a bad experience what so ever…
Positives– They always have candy on sale, definitely helpful if you love chocolate like me :)
–The staff is sooo nice… they are always smiling (which you hardly ever see in a drugstore)
–If you have an inquiry regarding an item, the manager has no problem listening and probably rectifying the situation in your favor
–ATM
–pharmacy
–photo center (very small, not that private, but present nonetheless)
Negatives– If you go too late in the afternoon/​evening (3:30– 7) you might have to wait on a looonnnnggg line…

Its a Rite Aid so you know, you get what you came here for. It’s just like any other pharmacy, except that you can get cash back on any purchase. Very convenient when your bank’s ATM is nowhere nearby and you don’t want to waste $ 2.50 at another branch.

This place is a damn garbage dump. My BFF lives around the corner, and while I’ve never been crazy about it, it’s always been too convenient to pass by and walk the extra 2 blocks to Duane Reade.
There is always a long line and never enough cashiers on staff. The store is in a constant state of «post-​cyclone», with stuff all over the place. Imagine any retailer at the end of the day the week before Christmas. Product strewn about, empty shelves, excessively long lines, etc. That’s this Rite Aid EVERY DAY.
I buy milk here. Until yesterday. The shelf is usually pretty full of milk and it happened to be nearly empty yesterday (Sunday evening — makes sense). I was SHOCKED at the shelf. I think this Rite Aid has been opened for about 8 years and I can guarantee, they have NEVER cleaned the refrigeration unit the milk is sold from. The entire unit is filled with dirt and filth from top to bottom. It’s crawling with bacteria and it’s astonishing that the manager (who is ALWAYS on the phone when I’m there) has never asked one of his staff to clean it. Vile and gross. And a staffer actually restocks this fridge and it never occurs him/​her to clean it? What the hell is wrong with these people? Corporate visits this garbage dump of a store and ignores this? Are you kidding me?!! If this was my store and my DM visited and saw this fridge, I’d be fired. Please check the photo attached. Disgusting.
In addition, there is a constant row of trash out on the side of their store on 118^th Street. They toss their trash bags out there and they get picked thru by homeless and it’s left all over the sidewalk for half the day. I guess since it’s next to the side door and not the front door, they don’t care.
Winter? They don’t attend to the ice on their side of the building and it’s an ice rink for half the block along their side wall the entire winter. This shit wouldn’t fly on the Upper East Side, but I guess since it’s Harlem, nobody gives a damn if someone slips and falls on the side of their store.
Sorry, Rite Aid. I’ll walk that extra 2 blocks to Duane Reade from now on. You lost me as a customer.

I hate this pharmacy. The layout is a damn maze, with things that dont belong with other things in the same isle, making it impossible to find what I’m looking for. I get so flustered shopping here that I nearly always forget something, then have to go back, thereby exponentially increasing my annoyance since I have to wait on line all over again, which is inevitably 10-​people deep with only one cashier. ARGH.