THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 13, 1996 TAG: 9602130304
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
An era will end next week when the 91-year-old Nansemond Drug Co. on Main Street closes its lunch counter in preparation for take-over by Rite Aid Pharmacy.
``They don't want the lunch counter,'' said Peggy Hopewell, who has owned the business with her husband, David, for 22 years.
That means no more grilled cheese sandwiches slathered with margarine or lemonade that is freshly squeezed as ordered. No more large soft drinks for 50 cents at the institution, which has been memorialized in cyberspace.
And the three women who serve scoops of ice cream or an old-fashioned soda will be out of work. Five others - clerks and pharmacy workers - will keep their jobs.
Hopewell, who has managed the business since her husband's stroke three years ago, plans to shut down the lunch operation Feb. 21, two days before Rite Aid takes over.
``It's sad. But, you know, these things have to come sometimes,'' she said Monday.
The national chain will operate the business as Rite Aid, said C. Bradley Mills, Rite Aid's pharmacy acquisition specialist for Virginia.
Closing the last downtown soda fountain will make room for more retail display space, he said.
The store, in the heart of the central business district, offers health and beauty supplies, greeting cards, magazines and a variety of small gifts.
It is a regular lunchtime stop for downtown workers and shoppers. Generations of Suffolk residents have grown up sharing fountain drinks and conversation there.
Rite Aid, which has a store in Suffolk West Shopping Center, is building a prototype store with two drive-through windows at North Main Street and Constance Road, about five blocks from the Nansemond. by CNB