Longs Drugs Stores - Oakland

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Longs Drugs Stores began when brothers Tom and Joe Long opened their first store on May 12, 1938 at Piedmont Ave and 40th. ¹

"Super Longs" on Pleasant Valley Ave

From 1960s through 2011, the shopping center at the corner of Broadway and 51st/Pleasant Valley Avenue held a succession of drugstores.

Pay Less Drug store. Courtesy of user "romleys" on Flickr, all rights reserved.It then relaunched as PayLess Drug on August 16th 1967. It remained a PayLess until RiteAid took over in 1997. RiteAid then sold this store and a handful of others to Longs Drugs.

The store, known by residents as “Super Longs" or "the Big Longs,” changed hands for the final time when CVS bought Longs in 2008. ⁴

The store was uniquely large for a drugstore, at 90,000 square feet and taking up nearly a full city block, while the typical Longs or CVS store is approximately 12 - 13,000 square feet. ² Outside, it hosted a garden store, and held both a cobbler and Top Dog hot dog stand in its front vestibule area.

At its height, it boasted 21 departments and a range of goods from art supplies to home repair, with many long time employees. Near the end of its tenure, the store was unable to support its full 90,000 feet of floor space and much of the store was left empty.

It closed when Safeway Inc, which manages the shopping complex where the store was located, decided to redevelop the complex into the new "Shops at the Ridge" development. The Longs building was demolished, and replaced with a modernized Safeway store -- replacing the Safeway that had previously been in a different location in the same development.

The closure caught the attention of neighbors and Super Longs fans ³, with a 2011 Oakland North article ² stating:

When residents caught wind of these plans, specifically the closing of the mega-drugstore, they objected in force. Two different “Save Super Longs” Facebook groups popped up and hundreds of letters have been written to Oakland officials begging the city to halt the closure.

Piedmont Ave Location

This is just a placeholder for info about Longs Drugs Stores, and the building where they used to be located on Piedmont Avenue. More work is required. This info was moved from the Fred Turner Stores page:

In 1967 the following businesses were located in the ___________ building just north of the Fred C. Turner Shopping Center: Long's Drugs Pharmacy & Liquors @ 4037 Piedmont (occupied two full store fronts); Phil Reese Store for Men @ 4041 Piedmont; Mir-Mar Fashion Women Clothes @ 4043 Piedmont; and Elmer's Kitchen Restaurant @ 4063 Piedmont.

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