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Hook's Drug Stores

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Hook's Drug Stores was an Indianapolis, Indiana –based drug store chain which was founded in 1900 by John A. Hook. The chain flourished throughout central Indiana for most of the 20th-century.

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19-713: Hook's did business under its own banner, the SupeRX Drug Stores banner outside its core market, and the Brooks Pharmacy banner after acquiring the New England pharmacy chain. The entire company was eventually purchased by fellow Midwestern drugstore chain Revco . Most former Hook's locations that are still open operate as CVS , which bought out Revco in the late 1990s and rebranded their stores as CVS. The Brooks Pharmacy stores were divested by Revco after

38-520: A mile of a Rite Aid store were sold to another pharmacy company, such as CVS/pharmacy or Walgreens , or were closed. Brooks' parent The Jean Coutu Group (PJC) USA, Inc. remained an active in-name-only subsidiary of Rite Aid, as shown in the latter company's October 2023 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings. Pantry Pride Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include

57-627: A year later, and Hook's became a division of the privately held Hook's-SupeRx . Hook's-SupeRx acquired the New England–based Brooks Pharmacy chain in 1988. Hooks-SupeRx stores traded under three different names – Hook's Drug and SupeRx in the Midwest and Brooks Pharmacy in New England. Hook's-SupeRx was acquired by Revco in 1994. Revco was subsequently acquired by CVS in 1997. Many former Hook's locations are now CVS Pharmacies. A restored 19th-century Hook's drug store stands at

76-563: The Burlington, Vermont -based City Drug chain, greatly increasing its market share in the state of Vermont and re-entering the state of New York for the first time since the 1994 Revco acquisition. Later, in 2001, Brooks purchased all of the New England Osco Drug stores from Albertson's . (The Osco name would be reintroduced to New England in 2005, following Albertson's acquisition of Shaw's and Star Market .) During

95-547: The Indiana State Fairgrounds , and is a popular attraction at the annual Indiana State Fair . It was originally built in 1849 and has been restored with authentic 19th century cabinets. In 2000, the great-grandchildren of John A. Hook opened Hook's Apothecary in Evansville, Indiana . The store specializes in compounding prescriptions. It has no corporate ties to CVS. After Hook's was sold to Revco ,

114-549: The Indianapolis, Indiana -based Hook-SupeRx drug chain in 1988. Under the reign of Hook-SupeRx, Brooks assumed a new management team with Gayl W. Doster as COO, William Welsh in charge of operations, and David Morocco in charge of purchasing. They attempted to modernize the store base and turn around what had become a struggling chain. In 1991, Brooks developed the innovative RxWatch computerized prescription service, and in 1993, Brooks began an aggressive attempt to expand into

133-568: The Eckerd and Brooks chains from Jean Coutu for US$ 3.4 billion. The acquisition included 1,854 stores, six distribution centers , and made Rite Aid the largest drugstore chain on the East Coast . The transaction was officially completed in June 2008. All Brooks and Eckerd locations were either rebranded as Rite Aid. To comply with FTC antitrust regulations, some Brooks/Eckerd locations within

152-713: The New England Brooks stores to the Quebec -based Jean Coutu Group , which had already been operating stores in Rhode Island and Massachusetts under the Maxi Drug and Douglas Drug trade names. The Brooks stores retained by Revco outside of New England later assumed the Revco banner, while subsequently, Jean Coutu rebranded its Maxi and Douglas stores as Brooks. However, some former Maxi stores were placed under

171-598: The New York City suburbs in the lower Hudson Valley and southwestern Connecticut In 1994, Revco acquired Brooks as part of its larger purchase of the Hook-SupeRx chain. At the time, the Brooks store base stretched from Maine to Maryland . Revco had no interest in operating the Brooks outlets in New England, as they considered them outside of their core market. As a result, that same year, Revco sold all of

190-565: The Northeast. The following year, all of Pantry Pride's assets, including Adams, were acquired by corporate raider Ronald Perelman 's Revlon subsidiary. Shortly after the Perelman acquisition, in 1986, all Adams stores were converted to the Brooks trade name. For a period of time, ownership of Brooks was continually transferred between different Perelman-owned subsidiaries, including California-based Compact Video . Perelman resold Brooks to

209-638: The Oxygen and Medical Equipment stores continued under the Hook's name in many of the same locations as before. It is now a subsidiary of Rotech Medical Corporation. Brooks Pharmacy Brooks Pharmacy was a chain of more than 330 pharmacies located throughout New England and New York and was a well-recognized name in the New England pharmacy industry for several decades. The corporate headquarters were located in Warwick, Rhode Island . During its heyday in

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228-640: The combined Brooks-Maxi banner. Under the management of Jean Coutu, Brooks was successful for several years, growing and acquiring smaller chains and pieces of larger chains throughout the New England region. In 1995, Brooks acquired Rite Aid's entire Massachusetts and Rhode Island store network. In exchange Brooks sold its entire store base in Maine to Rite Aid and exited the state. (Ironically, many Brooks stores in Massachusetts and Rhode Island would soon return to their original banner). In 1999, Brooks acquired

247-408: The company in 1943 upon Hook's death. In 1956, following Roesch's death in a traffic accident, John Hook's son, August F. "Bud" Hook, assumed leadership of the company. The chain added 150 new stores between 1946 and 1972. In 1985, The Kroger Company outbid Rite Aid , which had attempted a hostile takeover, and acquired the Hook's chain. Kroger divested itself of Hook's and its own SupeRx drugstores

266-693: The defunct Adams Drug Company of Pawtucket, Rhode Island , a family owned operation founded in 1932 by the Salmanson Family. Adams acquired several stores under the Brooks Drug banner in Vermont and New York, and also operated stores under several other trade names throughout the Northeast. In 1984, Pantry Pride , a Florida-based supermarket chain, acquired the Adams Drug Company, which then consisted of about 400 stores throughout

285-428: The existing Brooks network, resulting in a steady loss of market share and lagging same-store sales as CVS and Walgreens continued to expand and solidify their store base in the New England region. On June 4, 2007, Brooks Pharmacy officially announced the sale of the pharmacies to Rite Aid . The Brooks trade name, long associated with New England drug retailing, was retired. Many trace Brooks Pharmacy's roots back to

304-736: The late 1990s and early 2000s, Brooks Pharmacy was also seen as an innovator, being one of the first American chains to bring European derma care skin centers and consultation centers into its stores. Shortly after the Osco acquisition, President Michel Coutu made a commitment to significantly increase the size of the chain by the year 2004. This expansion was accomplished in August 2004 with Coutu's acquisition of about 1,539 Eckerd Pharmacies as well as Eckerd's headquarters in Largo, Florida , from its then-parent company, J.C. Penney . By 2005, Coutu had merged

323-702: The late 1990s and early 2000s, Brooks was one of the premier regional drug chains in the United States, and was the second largest drug chain in New England , maintaining an especially strong presence in the states of Vermont , New Hampshire , and Rhode Island . In 2002, Brooks was recipient of the 2002 Rex Awards Regional Chain of the Year. However, Brooks faced many difficulties between 2004 and 2006, as its parent company struggled unsuccessfully to integrate 1,500 Eckerd stores acquired from J.C. Penney with

342-569: The operations of the Brooks and Eckerd chains together at Brooks headquarters in Warwick, Rhode Island, shuttering the former Eckerd headquarters in Florida. Between 2005 and 2006, Coutu ran into many difficulties integrating the Brooks and Eckerd chains together, and as a result, Coutu's Brooks and Eckerd outlets experienced a significant decline in market share. On August 23, 2006, The Wall Street Journal announced that Rite Aid would be buying

361-525: The purchase; most of them operate as Rite Aid stores. In October 1900, pharmacist John A. Hook opened the first Hook's Drug Store in an Indianapolis German community at the corner of South East and Prospect Streets. A second location opened at the corner of New Jersey and East Washington Streets and Hook added Edward F. Roesch as a partner. By 1912, the chain had expanded to twelve stores. Many of Hook's interwar drug stores were designed by Kurt Vonnegut Sr. of Vonnegut & Bohn . Roesch became president of

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