This video is produced by and for Centre County Report and is shared through a partnership with StateCollege.com. Reporting by Steven Svitko.
After 129-years in business, the family-owned Parrish Apothecary Shop at 114 N. Allegheny St. in Bellefonte will be closing its doors for financial reasons.
Payroll and new inventory are getting tougher to manage for the shop’s 83-year-old owner, Jay Montgomery. His son David Montgomery said it’s been hard on everyone.
‘It’s been very emotional,’ he said. ‘I never realized how much we meant to the community, didn’t realize how much the community meant to us. We’ve had laughs, crying, shared stories.’
David Montgomery has been working at Parrish as a pharmacist for about 30 years. But he’s been coming to the shop since he was 5-years-old, helping his parents and watching them run the store. He even met his wife across the street at another locally owned pharmacy, Plumb’s Drugs.
Over the years the two stores helped each other out when one ran low on supplies.
Nancy Richner, who has been coming to Parrish Apothecary for 60 years, said small drug stores provide something chain stores don’t.
‘It’s wonderful to have a privately owned drug store where they know you,’ she said. ‘They know your family. They’re ready to help you and you trust them… The big drug stores are fine, but they’re not personal. And this has been such a beautiful personal relationship here.’
The Montgomerys will be sticking around for a few more weeks to clean out the store — medicine, files and pieces of history. They’re encouraging people to stop by to say hello, and goodbye.
