Rite Aid, once a homegrown pharmacy giant in Pennsylvania, looks to be officially gone from the state. The company’s Grindstone location in Fayette County was the last pharmacy listed, and its final day came on August 22, 2025, though a few storefronts were expected to linger briefly.
That left just a handful of stores (located in Belle Vernon, Berwick, Coudersport, and Pittsburgh) still showing up on Rite Aid’s website in early September; however, calls to those numbers reportedly didn’t reach Rite Aid at all. One redirected to a CVS, another to Weis, and one phone line rang busy all day. The Pittsburgh airport store number didn’t pick up either.
The chain’s press office hasn’t confirmed the exact timing, but the evidence points to a clean sweep. And just like that, the brand founded in Scranton as Thrif D Discount Center in 1962 is gone from its own backyard.
What Led to the Collapse?
Rite Aid has been shrinking for years. The company, which first filed for bankruptcy in 2023, was pushed back into Chapter 11 protection this May by a combination of factors: crippling reimbursement struggles with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), a messy retail footprint with stores clustered on the East and West coasts, and a flood of lawsuits tied to the opioid crisis.
At the time of the May filing, there were still 345 Rite Aid stores in Pennsylvania. By Friday, September 5, 2025, the company’s site listed 70 stores nationwide, and even that number looks shaky, since it still included Pennsylvania locations that have already closed.
The Aftermath
The closures have left holes across the state. For many communities, a shuttered pharmacy isn’t just about losing a place to buy snacks or shampoo — it means a new “pharmacy desert,” with the nearest drugstore five miles or more away. That’s a real problem in both cities and rural towns.
Customers haven’t been left entirely adrift. Rite Aid mapped out where prescriptions would land as the doors closed. In Pennsylvania, a bulk of them went to CVS, the nation’s largest chain, which says it picked up 173 Rite Aid pharmacy files in the state, along with 42 in New Jersey, completing the acquisitions by August 8.
CVS also hired about 600 former Rite Aid employees in both states. Some files went to Giant Eagle or Weis Markets’ pharmacies, and others to Walgreens.
For a company that was once headquartered in Cumberland County near Harrisburg, then later in Philadelphia as recently as 2022, the collapse in its home state feels symbolic. By September 29, Rite Aid’s last two pharmacies in the U.S. — both on the West Coast — are set to close as well.
Source: WVIA