Beacon Hill Rite Aid closes

The lights were out Tuesday evening at the Rite Aid at the corner of Route 1 and Beacon Hill Road.

The Rite Aid at the corner of Beacon Hill Road and Richmond Highway has closed, part of Walgreens’ reorganization of the Rite Aid stores it purchased last year.

The store was remaining open until it had liquidated its inventory, a spokeswoman for Walgreens said Monday. As of Tuesday evening, its doors were shut and a phone recording said the location was now permanently closed.

The Rite Aid’s pharmacy closed earlier this month, and customers’ prescription records were moved to the Walgreens across the street at 6717 Richmond Highway, the spokeswoman said.

Walgreens purchased 1,932 Rite Aid stores for $4.4 billion last year and began converting some of them into Walgreens, while closing others.

“As announced last October, we will be closing some store locations to help ensure we have the right stores in the right locations to create a more focused network of stores that can deliver the greatest value for our customers,” said Emily Hartwig-Mekstan, a media relations manager for Walgreens.

Hartwig-Mekstan said Walgreens is working to transfer employees from the stores that are closing to other locations.

“We are committed to taking care of our team members throughout this process, and expect to have positions at other locations for the majority of store employees who are impacted,” she said. “We will be making every effort to find the same or similar positions for team members”

The Rite Aids located in the Aldi shopping center and the Hollin Hall Shopping Center are also owned by Walgreens; it’s not clear yet if those stores will remain open or closed.

Bring back the Pig?

The Beacon Hill Rite Aid opened in 1997, and its location is somewhat famous — or infamous, depending on your point of view. Longtime Richmond Highway residents will always remember Rite Aid as the store that replaced the legendary Dixie Pig restaurant, which was closed and demolished in 1996.

The Dixie Pig opened at the corner of Beacon Hill Road and Route 1 in 1946 and served generations of residents. With a dancing pig atop of a classic neon sign, the breakfast and barbecue joint was one of the most recognizable landmarks along the highway before its demise.

The Dixie Pig in 1989. (Greg Willis/Wikipedia)

The Dixie Pig still has a fond place in the memory of many locals, including State Sen. Scott Surovell, who grew up in the Richmond Highway area and named his blog after the restaurant.

Surovell said he was inspired by the memory of going to the Dixie Pig with his grandmother, and wrote that the Pig’s famous sign was “a reliable presence on Beacon Hill for 50 years.”

“The Dixie Pig was my grandmother’s favorite restaurant,” Surovell wrote. “Granny always ordered her old standby, especially after her hearing went bad, a B.L.T. and ‘a Bud.’ The Dixie Pig was definitely a place where you could get a B.L.T. and a Bud.”