Wurlitzer pharmacy celebrates 10th anniversary in NT
Mark Scheer, Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls, N.Y.
5 min read
May 14—NORTH TONAWANDA — Stephen Giroux has managed to cultivate a line of independently owned pharmacies in an era where it sometimes feels like there's a Rite Aid or Walgreens on every other block.
Giroux, who has been a professional pharmacist in Western New York since 1981, credits the success of his businesses to strong partnerships, support from family members and what he describes as the "hometown friendliness" his employees provide as part of an over-arching commitment to quality customer service.
"It goes back to the famous sitcom 'Cheers,' you come in and everyone knows your name," Giroux said. "We strive to have that sort of experience for our customers. We don't view our patients as customers but family. We truly care for the health and well-being of each person that walks through our doors."
Enough customers have been walking through the doors at pharmacies Giroux has either owned or co-owned to allow him and his business partners to operate a string of eight independently owned pharmacies in communities in Niagara, Erie, Orleans and Monroe counties.
While it starts at the top, Giroux stressed his pharmacy business would be nowhere without his dedicated team of employees who buy into the mission of treating each customer with respect and treating each pharmacy as if it were their own.
"To me, being a health care professional, if I know people in my community and I can help them out, it's a bond that can never be broken and it's a bond that leads to familiarity and comfort and with comfort comes happiness and with happiness comes quality," he said.
"Obviously, when you have eight locations it can't just be me," he added. "It has to be a team effort. We try to instill that in of all our team members and I think they do that well."
This year, Giroux and his team are celebrating their latest milestone: 10 years of service at Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy in North Tonawanda.
Giroux and company opened the Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy on April 8, 2013 at its current location, 521 Division St., next to the Market in the Square grocery store, formerly known as Budwey's, in North Tonawanda.
Giroux credits Frank Budwey with being a great partner in helping to advance the project and with supporting his belief that a pharmacy could work in the Division Street location.
"Budwey"s business was enormously successful and had great traffic and we've benefited from that," Giroux said.
Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy is truly a family operation. Giroux's daughter, Rachel Rosman, serves as the location's pharmacy manager while his son, Zachary, is the pharmacy's business manager.
Zachary Giroux said just one example of a service that Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy offers that demonstrates their dedication to patient care is PakMyMeds. The service is geared toward patients that struggle to take their medication in a timely fashion or struggle to follow the directions on the prescription bottle.
"We get the patient's medications synchronized (lining them up to come due at the same time) and fill them in a packaging that separates the medications by time of day and day of the week," he said.
The service simplifies and improves the ability of patients to take their medications properly and timely, which is vital for improving patient health, Zachary Giroux said. Though Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy has always offered this service, the location only recently began offering the service for no cost to the patient.
"Many patients saw the value of this service but, due to the cost, were apprehensive about starting the service," Stephen Giroux said. "We wanted to remove any obstacles that might hinder achieving patient adherence, so we decided to remove the service fee."
Other products and services that Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy offers include free prescription delivery, medication compounding, durable medical equipment, pet medications and medication/sharps disposal. The pharmacy also has a large gift department that includes seasonal gifts along with 50% off designer greeting cards.
"We love the North Tonawanda community," Giroux said. "We hope we are doing a good job. I would suspect that our growth reflects the fact that the community is responding to that as well."
Stephen Giroux's journey from professional pharmacist to owner of multiple pharmacies started nearly 40 years ago when, in 1974, he got his first job working at a small-town pharmacy in Williamson, New York.
The experience led Giroux to enroll in pharmacy school at the University at Buffalo. After graduating in 1981, he worked under his mentor, Don Arthur Sr., who, along with his business partner, Bill Fleming, owned Wurlitzer Pharmacy, which was located at the time on Nash Road.
In June 1983, Stephen realized his goal of owning his own pharmacy when he joined long-time business partner Bruce Moden in purchasing the former Peterson Drugs in Middleport. The pair renamed the pharmacy the Middleport Family Health Center, which has now been providing services to customers for four decades.
In that time, in addition to Wurlitzer Family Pharmacy in North Tonawanda, Giroux and his partners own and operate a total of eight Western New York pharmacies, including Lockport Pharmacy (now Lockport Home Medical), Transit Hill Pharmacy, Rosenkrans Pharmacy, Hilton Family Pharmacy, Oakfield Family Pharmacy and Summit Park Pharmacy.
'It was always my goal to be an independent pharmacy owner," Giroux said. "That was my goal even while I was still in school. I was very anxious and champing at the bit to get into an ownership position.
"Did I think I'd grow this way? Not necessarily, but I was always interested in expanding," he added.
