The word “apothecary” can refer to a pharmacy or pharmacist and likely evokes thoughts of chemists and concoctions. St. Albert’s Midtown Apothecary has all of these. Owner and pharmacist Karen Moak opened the store – part pharmacy, part ice-cream shop and wholly old-fashioned – in April of 2015.
When Karen was in school, she and her fellow classmates saw photos of pharmacies harkening back to a different era – with a soda counter and tall stools, a place where people met to socialize. “When I was in school, I thought ‘If I ever own a pharmacy, this is what I would want it to be like.’” But years later, running the pharmacy in the big box store, Target, her ideals of getting to know customers by name while helping manage their health drifted away. But then Target closed its doors, and Karen thought, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’
