Rite Aid, the pharmacy giant, is now a memory after the company announced Friday that it has officially closed all of its stores.
After 63 years in business, the pharmacy shuttered its remaining 89 stores this week.
“All Rite Aid stores have now closed. We thank our loyal customers for their many years of support,” the company said in a statement on its website.
The company’s website, which has since removed all of its services, remains available for former customers to request pharmaceutical records or locate another nearby pharmacy to fulfill prescriptions.
Philadelphia-based Rite Aid was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as Thrif D Discount Center. The company had struggled with debt, posted annual losses for several years and was cutting costs and closing stores well before its initial bankruptcy filing.
Rite Aid first filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2023, largely because of competition from bigger chains and its debt pile, which topped $4 billion due to expensive legal battles for allegedly filling unlawful opioid prescriptions.
The store had also been dealing with tighter profits on their prescriptions, increased theft and customers who are drifting to online shopping and discount retailers.
More than 520 Rite Aid pharmacies have closed since October 2023, which is about a quarter of the 2,111 open at the time of the bankruptcy filing. The filing allowed it to cut $2 billion in debt.
But the pharmacy chain continued to carry $2.5 billion in debt when it emerged from bankruptcy as a private company in 2024.
The pharmacy chain at one point had more than 4,900 stores.