the.com/drugstore
A pharmacy that gave up and started selling everything else too.
means A retail store built around a pharmacy counter that also sells snacks, toiletries, magazines, and household odds and ends.
from An American coinage from the 1800s, simply 'drug' (medicinal substance) plus 'store' — pharmacists of the era stocked chemicals, tonics, and compounds, and as soda fountains and sundries crept onto the shelves to bring in extra customers, the name stuck even as the mission wandered far past medicine.
- origin
- Started as apothecaries selling medicine and chemicals
- expansion
- Soda fountains made drugstores social hubs in 1900s
- irony
- Often sell candy right next to the blood pressure meds
- modern form
- Now mostly snacks, with a pharmacy counter attached