PHILADELPHIA — Angela Gardin looked at the colorful handwritten thank-you notes, taped to a front window of the Queen Village Rite Aid, and began to cry. Gardin has been assistant manager there for the past two years.

One note scrawled in pink, read: “Everyone who works here is so kind. I have always been greeted with a smile and warmth.”

“Thank you for all the treats,” read another, signed with a paw print (from a neighborhood dog named Grandpa, Gardin explained). A child wrote with clumsy handwriting: “I’m really going to miss this Rite Aid because I used to get snacks here before school.”

“This place has been a staple in the community,” added another customer, “because of the amazing people who have worked here.”

On a recent weekday, as Gardin unloaded boxes of hair dye in a half-empty aisle at the soon-to-close store, she tried to describe what the thank-yous meant to her and struggled to find the words. She had placed empty thank you cards at the front of the store weeks ago but wasn’t sure how many customers would take the time to fill them out.

“They are so nice,” she said, wiping away tears, “and it’s so nice to have nice people, especially ones who show their appreciation.”

Across the Philadelphia region, Rite Aid customers and employees are starting to say similar goodbyes.

After filing for bankruptcy for the second time in less than two years, the Navy Yard-based pharmacy chain is set to start closing stores this month, with some locations shuttering as soon as this week.

The closure of the region’s 100 remaining locations will make it more difficult for some residents to access pharmacy services. In the city and other walkable areas, lower-income residents who don’t have cars will be particularly impacted.

Elsewhere, some will have to make longer drives to get prescriptions. The 46,000 residents of Perry County, west of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, are losing half their pharmacies with the closures of three Rite Aids.

The company has already auctioned off its prescription files, the bulk of which were bought by CVS, with its non-pharmacy assets to be sold at the end of June, according to court documents.

Rite Aid spokespeople did not return a request for comment, which included questions about when exactly local stores are expected to close.

‘I always went to Rite Aid’

Several customers said they weren’t surprised to hear the news of Rite Aid’s second bankruptcy — given the earlier bankruptcy, years of store closings, and persistent inventory issues. But some felt sadness and nostalgia.

Outside the Queen Village store, Robert Campbell, 31, said his life wouldn’t change that much when his neighborhood Rite Aid closes. After all, he said, “there’s a CVS down the street.”

But “I’ll miss it,” he said, noting he’s been a Rite Aid customer since he went with his mother as a child growing up in New York.

“It makes it more inconvenient,” said Jennifer Johnson, 60, who can walk to her nearest Rite Aid but may soon have to drive to the closest CVS. For the past 20 years, “I always went to Rite Aid.”

And the prescription transfer process has been a hassle, with her scripts not being moved automatically, she said. (Rob Frankil, executive director of the Philadelphia Association of Retail Druggists, said in an interview last month that a prescription transfer in the midst of a chain pharmacy’s closure often “is not an easy process.”)

Other Rite Aid customers had more existential gripes.

Upon learning Rite Aid was going out of business, “I was pissed off, actually,” said Constance “Conni” Billé, 78, of Germantown. “Consolidation of the healthcare industry really sucks. It is really bad for consumers.”

Rite Aid pharmacists to be remembered fondly

Several customers said they won’t necessarily miss the Rite Aid corporation. But they will miss the people who work at their local stores — the pharmacists who gave them their first COVID-19 vaccine or the cashiers who offered a smile when they were buying medicines for sick children.

In Levittown, Pennsylvania, Phil Michalski said, the staff at his Rite Aid has gone above and beyond.

When his son went into anaphylactic shock due to a new ingredient in an ADHD medication, the pharmacists there jumped into action. They spent hours on the phone with six stores to cobble together enough of a different version of the medication to last through the end of his son’s prescription, Michalski said.

He will miss the comfort of knowing his pharmacists, he said, and wonders how much longer his store will stay open. He asks the pharmacists every time he goes in, he said, and they swear “‘it’s going to be months.’”

But Michalski, 44, said he’s skeptical: “It looks like a ghost town inside the store.”

Mara Saltzman, 61, of Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, goes to Rite Aid for vaccinations. She was saddened to hear of the closures, immediately thinking of all the Rite Aid pharmacists and other employees who are being “left behind.” They are frontline workers, she said, who have risked their own health and safety to help others.

During the pandemic, Saltzman said, “I was just so impressed by the pharmacists, with their patience and their kindness as we were going through what was an incredibly stressful time.” At the Wynnewood Rite Aid, the pharmacy staff put Saltzman’s daughter at ease, despite her fear of needles.

“It’s very personal when you have somebody doing that,” Saltzman said.

She worries she won’t find that level of compassion at a new pharmacy, especially if it’s now overwhelmed with customers. She is concerned, too, that getting vaccine appointments will be harder with fewer pharmacy choices.

In Queen Village, where the sign outside reminds passersby to “stay up to date on vaccines,” assistant manager Angela Gardin and her team are unsure what comes next. On a paper taped to the front door, customers are reminded that the store won’t accept gift cards, returns, or exchanges starting June 5.

Customers ask when the store is closing “100 times a day,” Gardin said, but employees don’t know the answer. Gardin said she doesn’t have another job lined up but hopes to get a managerial position with another company.

Thousands of Rite Aid employees across Pennsylvania and New Jersey stand to lose their jobs through the store closures.

On the front counter, between the cash register and the blank thank-you cards, employees put out a box that resembles a tip jar. A Post-it note on the front of it reads: “Any job suggestions or business cards are greatly appreciated.”

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