The Stadium District store also offers free same-day delivery, free emergency delivery of medicine, and free gift wrapping of their hand-picked treasures. The staff are approachable and will balk at nothing. 

 

One can feel safe telling them about the unsightly wart that has found its way into ones armpit (if one’s so needs to so tell). When I was a boy, my mom and I would make weekly trips to both the grocery and the pharmacy. This was way back before stores started combining into mega-stores, before anyone had ever heard of one stop spending. We bought groceries at the grocery and pretty much everything else at the pharmacy, including, but not limited to my anti-hyperactive medicine. I liked it that way, it gave my young brain a sense of security knowing that hypodermics weren’t going to end up in the tomatoes, and I learned early on that the men and women in the white coats were my friends. Now it seems that you can get most anything at a super store just outside of the downtown corridor, and what you can’t get there you could probably get from the comfort of your computer chair.  

 

However, a face-to-face relationship with your pharmacist is in my opinion just as important as your relationship with your physician. Drugs can kill you. 

 

Liz Rankos, daughter of owners Greg and Deanna Rankos and the in house pharmacy technician, told me, “My dad has saved people’s lives by identifying problems that mail order pharmacies would have overlooked. We have a comprehensive, sometimes third generation relationship with our customers, and communication is big for us, we talk to our people a lot. You can’t get that from the mail. The relationship between people is really important.” 

 

It is inspiring to see a store fight the good fight and keep face-to-face relationships and personalized service at the forefront for nearly 80 years.

[Rankos’ Stadium Pharmacy, 101 N. Tacoma Ave., Tacoma, 253.383.2411, myspace.com/rankospharmacy]