[baritkello]

Usuall Im there getting snacks and things for that early morning photoshoot so Little Lebowski-Hefner?

What happened in this story? Anyone know?

[bjacogaerllyo]

Has D/R gotten too big for its britches? From Crain's ...

Duane Reade takes double dose of downgrade

[FloareTraurne]

There's no way Im gonna like that.

Im often there at 3 am "Dude style" in my bathrobe at 3 am getting things I need on the way home.

Duane Reade makes this city what it is.

Gregory Tenenbaum.

[Grenader]

Would that be at 3 AM?

[PilotJargon]

3 am sharp.

[replicajoy]

A New York Relationship Gets More Complicated

By JAMES BARRON



In the 50 years since it named itself for the side streets closest to its first store, Duane Reade has had a singular relationship with New York.

Complicated, unavoidable, convenient, annoying — whatever that relationship was, even Duane Reade seemed to understand how deeply it had worked its way into the municipal psyche.

On Wednesday, Duane Reade added another new and complicated layer to its relationship. The chain with the citycentric slogan— “Your city. Your drugstore” —sold itself to another chain that also started with a single store.

A chain from somewhere else. A chain even larger Duane Reade.

Walgreen said it was paying $1.075 billion for Duane Reade, which, at last count, had 150 stores in Manhattan. Only the Starbucks and Subway restaurant chains had more stores in Manhattan. Citywide, Duane Reade had 229 stores, about 3½ times as many as Walgreen has.

But Walgreen has 7,162 stores nationwide.

The deal left eyeliner-and-toothpaste buyers wondering what it would mean in places where Duane Reade and Walgreen’s drugstores stare at each other across the street. On East 86th Street near Lexington Avenue, a Duane Reade is on the odd-numbered side of the street, opposite a Walgreen’s store. In Times Square, Duane Reade occupies the storefront at 1470 Broadway. Walgreen is across the street, at 1471.

But the transaction also left customers thinking about their emotional connection to places as mundane as drugstores. For some, the connection is not all that pleasant: The Web site ihateduanereade.blogspot.com carried a photograph of a flaming bus, doctored to show a Duane Reade trademark on the side.

Or consider what someone who signed himself nb said in a comment to The Times’s DealBook blog: “Duane Reade is the DMV of drug stores, they will not be missed.”

Some customers said Duane Reade took the real estate maxim of location, location, location to new levels, squeezing in stores left and right. If there is not one across from the office building where you work, there is one steps from your apartment. If there is not one around the corner from your apartment, there is one next to the restaurant where you are supposed to have dinner or the movie theater showing the movie you want to see afterward.

“I appreciate convenience, I appreciate availability, knowing if I run out of milk I can be there and back in less than 10 minutes,” said Victoria Voketaitis, a booking representative with a company that arranges tours for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. “But when I start to see what used to be a neighborhood look like a shopping mall, chain after chain after chain, it’s hard not to feel it’s losing the particular neighborhood-y warm feel.”

Some customers say all Duane Reade stores are alike. Norma Peña, a mail clerk who lives in the Bronx, disagrees.

She said she shopped at the Duane Reade at Broadway and West 40th Street because there was more merchandise to choose from there. “I come all the way down here,” she said while buying cough medicine for her sick 15-year-old daughter. “We have one in the Bronx, but they don’t have that much.”

To some customers, the rise of drugstore chains meant the demise of small, owner-operated pharmacies that were probably pricier, but offered service the chain stores do not aspire to. Other customers said chains like Duane Reade have come to serve a different function.

“Duane Reade has replaced the five-and-dimes that sold everything from clothing to pantyhose and cosmetics,” said Irene Wlodarski, the national coordinator for concert and artists department at Steinway & Sons, the piano maker. “You could find a five-and-dime on every block. Now look at Duane Reade. They’re selling stationery, DVDs, books.”

In the last few months Duane Reade has been giving itself a makeover.

Under Robert Bass’s private equity firm, Oak Hill Capital Partners, which bought Duane Reade in 2004, Duane Reade has spent the last few months redesigning and remodeling stores. The changes include widening the aisles, seeing that the shelves are not stacked to the ceiling and installing under-the-shelf lighting that does for makeup what makeup is supposed to do for the customer’s face.

By coincidence, a new Duane Reade opened at Eighth Avenue and West 18th Street on Wednesday, just after the Walgreen deal was announced. It impressed Angela Amato, who works at a law firm nearby.
“It’s really fresh,” she said, adding that it looked more like a supermarket than a drugstore. “Some of these stores are old and dinky.”

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...d/#more-135359

Coverage at Crain's

[Aozenee]

Woo?

Great, all hail competition.

[UpperMan]

You think Duane Reade is terrible?

Go into a NYC Rite Aid for really bumbling service

[NumDusthouh]

I get automatic flex deductions at Walgreens.

[frequensearules]

Yeah, little chance of any competition .


Walgreen Agrees to Buy New York's Duane Reade

Largest U.S. Drugstore Chain to Pay $620 Million, Plus Debt, for 257-Store Company With Strong Regional Presence

By PETER LATTMAN And TIMOTHY W. MARTIN

Walgreen Co. agreed to buy Duane Reade for about $620 million, excluding debt, giving the largest U.S. drugstore chain a dominant presence in New York City.

The deal, an all-cash transaction that includes the assumption of $480 million in debt, is Walgreen's largest retail acquisition ever. It will tack on 257 stores in the New York area, the biggest drugstore market in the U.S. The Deerfield, Ill.-based chain had been slow to build a presence in New York, with just 13 stores in Manhattan and 70 in the broader metropolitan area.

In an interview, Walgreen Chief Executive Greg Wasson said that without the acquisition, "it would have taken us many, many years, through our organic growth model, to gain that type of presence" in New York. He said on an investor call Wednesday that Walgreen would keep the Duane Reade name but decide over time "as to the best and most effective way to harmonize" the two brands.

Walgreen, which posted $63 billion in sales across its 7,162 stores last year, will look not only to gain a sales boost from the acquisition but also to capitalize on Duane Reade's new product and marketing initiatives. A traditionally conservative company, Walgreen has posted weaker results in recent months than its largest competitor, CVS Caremark Corp., which has moved more quickly to adopt innovative ideas such as loyalty-card programs and in-store cosmetic departments.

The deal also speaks to broader shifts in how consumers buy drugs. As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. have enticed shoppers with less expensive prescription drugs, pharmacy chains have looked to upgrade their food and general-merchandise offerings to drive sales.

With most of its locations in New York City, Duane Reade is largely insulated from competition from big-box retailers. It has also focused on consumables such as a private-label food offerings under its DR Delish brand, hawking spicy Cajun trail mix and dark chocolate-covered almonds near the cash register.

"Duane Reade, despite its smaller size, has been outpacing the folks in Deerfield in terms of innovation," said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners LLC, a retail consultant based in New Canaan, Conn.

Duane Reade's owners, Oak Hill Capital Partners, will exit the deal with a profit in what has been a challenging investment for the private-equity firm. The chain had struggled under a roughly $550 million debt load since 2004, when Oak Hill acquired the company in a $750 million leveraged buyout.

Last year, Oak Hill injected $125 million of new equity into Duane Reade to help reduce its leverage. Oak Hill will generate a roughly 12% net annualized return on the deal.

The New York chain not only redesigned its balance sheet. For the past two years it has initiated a revamp of its often-cramped and disheveled stores, installing wider aisles, walk-in health-care centers and a beauty-boutique concept selling high-margin moisturizers and lipstick. It has thus far remodeled or opened 30 stores under its new concept. Walgreen management made the decision to move forward with the acquisition in recent months, after visiting a handful of the revamped Duane Reade stores. "I can't overemphasize the fact that we like what they are doing," Mr. Wasson said.

Duane Reade, which generated about $1.8 billion in revenue last year, has also had legal issues. In 2008 federal prosecutors brought accounting-fraud charges against the firm's former CEO Anthony Cuti and former Chief Financial Officer William Tennant. A criminal trial in federal court in Manhattan is set for next month.

Duane Reade was founded in 1960 by brothers Abraham, Eli and Jack Cohen. It took its name from its first store, located in between Duane and Reade streets in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood. Bain Capital acquired it from its founders in 1992, sold it to DLJ Merchant Banking in 1997. After Duane Reade went public in 1998, Oak Hill took it private again.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000...122423216.html

[hieklyintinee]

Well, I do hope Duane Reade would thrive when Walgreens take over. While I do believe they will retain the Daune Reade name as well as the store's classical looks as well as the updated looks, I'd also hope their staff's coolness would not change. I'll see about how Walgreen's stocks would go, but that is to be determined in the future...

[Herimoisige]

What's up with the logo redesign?

Two font styles and weights. One letter crossing over the circle; the other pushing up against it.




If the intention is to elevate the appearance of the stores, the B&W might be a good option.



Other possibilities


Instead of the garish


But the old logo itself wasn't the problem.

[DoterrFor]

the old logo is actually a better design...just poorly used.
making it black and white would even be better than the new one...
either way it's still Duane Reade

[Reatclaplen]

New logo reminds me of Boots.

[PyncGyncliacy]

Well, no, not really. It's now Walgreens. It's just called Duane Reade (for now).

the old logo is actually a better design...just poorly used.
making it black and white would even be better than the new one...
either way it's still Duane Reade

[ddwayspd]

[MeatteCen]

What is that page icon?

[fashikn]

Icon other then page

[AnriXuinriZ]

On the advanced reply you can chose the icon for the reply.

[masterso]

Walgreen's 'says' they will continue to operate as DR's.