| Former type | Retail/Pharmacy |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Acquired by Rite Aid |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Defunct | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
| Products | Pharmacy, Liquor, Cosmetics, Health and Beauty Aids, General Merchandise, Snacks, 1 Hour Photo |
| Website | None |
Thrifty PayLess Holdings, Inc. was a pharmacy holding company that owned the Thrifty Drugs and PayLess Drug Stores chains in the western United States.
The combined company was formed in April 1994 when Los Angeles-based TCH Corporation, the parent company of Thrifty Corporation and Thrifty Drug Stores, Inc., acquired the Kmart subsidiary PayLess Northwest, Inc.
At the time of the merger, TCH Corporation was renamed Thrifty PayLess Holdings, Inc. and Thrifty operated 495 stores, PayLess operated 543 stores.
In 1996, Rite Aid acquired 1,000 West Coast stores from Thrifty PayLess Holdings, creating a chain with over 3,500 drug stores.
Contents |
In 1932 L.J. Skaggs opened Payless Drug Stores in Tacoma, Washington, which soon expanded across the western United States. Some stores were sold to his brother Samuel "L.S." Olnie Skaggs (then an executive at Safeway) along with some colleagues. L.J. Skaggs retained California Pay Less Stores, which eventually became part of Thrifty PayLess. The remaining Pay-Less stores were renamed Skaggs Drug Stores in 1948, Skaggs Drug Centers in 1965.
Peyton Hawes and William Armitage acquired a controlling interest in five drug stores in three communities in Oregon and Washington, which were named PayLess, and grew their chain through both acquisition and internal expansion. By 1984 PayLess Drug Stores was the largest independently owned and operated drug store chain in the United States. It became a wholly owned unit of Kmart in 1985, as part of the Kmart expansion program created by CEO Joseph Antonini. In 1986, there were 225 PayLess stores. By 1990 PayLess operated in nine western states. Today, a new Payless Drugs, (using a similar logo to the prior PayLess), operates as a long-term healthcare pharmacy but does not operate retail stores.
In 1919, brothers Harry and Robert Borun, with brother-in-law Norman Levin founded Borun Brothers a Los Angeles, California drug wholesaler. In 1929, they opened their own retail outlets under the name Thrifty Cut Rate in Los Angeles, California.
By 1942, Thrifty Drug Stores had 58 stores.
A neon Thrifty drug store sign is visible in the background of a scene from the 1954 Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born.
During the 1950s, a Thrifty commercial jingle was heard on numerous radio stations in Southern California:
"Save a nickel, save a dime.
Save at Thrifty every time.
Save a dollar and much more,
at your Thrifty Drug Store!"
Until the early 1980s, every Thrifty store featured a tube tester, usually located near the cosmetics display case. There was still a wide variety of tube-type and hybrid tube/transistor consumer electronics in use, and the local Thrifty store was a convenient place to test TV and radio tubes and purchase replacements. Thrifty also published a brochure which showed various malfunctioning TV presentations and suggested which section's tube or tubes might be the problem. The brochure also provided numbered stickers to aid consumers in making sure that the good tubes went back into the same sockets in their equipment.
In 1988, Thrifty acquired Pay 'n Save and Bi-Mart.
In Washington State, Thrifty went by the name of Giant T since the Thrifty name was in use by another chain of drug stores. The name was later changed to Thrifty in 1984. Later all Thrifty stores in Washington state were renamed to Pay 'n Save after the acquisition.
The Thrifty name and logo live on at as Thrifty Ice Cream, still sold in West Coast Rite Aid locations and various ice cream shops in California and northern Mexico. It was available in half-gallon cartons, changed in about 2009 to 1.75 quarts, and from small Thrifty Ice Cream bars, located within Rite Aid stores themselves, as a single, double or triple dip cones, notable for their iconic cylindrical scoop shape. The Thrifty brand of ice cream was retained because it had won several important awards in its history. Thrifty Ice Cream is manufactured at the Thrifty creamery in El Monte, California.
The ice cream comes in several flavors. A partial list is: