Dake’s serves the area for over 90 years.
A bell jingled as the door opened to a small store on 54th Street near the corner of City Avenue. Behind the counter, a tall, friendly pharmacist warmly greeted his “patients,” as he calls them. The cozy space is filled with a lottery machine, shelves of snacks and four aisles of drugstore odds and ends.
Bryan Clemonts has been working at Dake’s for about a year. That makes him a newbie to an establishment that has been a fixture in the St. Joe’s community since about 1928.
“It is more of a community here rather than when you work at a corporate place,” Clemonts said. “Here you can have the time to get acquainted with your patients and get to know them better, try to take care of their needs more on an individual level.”
That individualized attention is what the owners and employees at Dake’s hope sets them apart from their competition up the street, chain stores like CVS and Rite Aid.
Due to Dake’s close proximity to St. Joe’s, it’s not unusual to find students stopping by the drugstore. Sophia Galvan ’18 has been going to Dake’s since her first year at St. Joe’s.
“My experience at Dake’s has been awesome,” Galvin said. “I like it because the people who work there know me by name. When I walk in to pick up my prescription, they almost always have it ready and waiting for me. I keep going there because they are reliable and they know who I am, so I’m not just another face.”
In its early days, Dake’s not only functioned as the neighborhood drugstore but also included a soda fountain, candy counter and lunch counter.
The store frequently took out ads in the Hawk in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Dake’s was also often the setting for stories in spoof editions of The Hawk. A Dec. 19, 1969 edition features then Director of Admissions James W. Moore, S.J., announcing the admission of the first woman to the school, only to have the male students react by running down to Dake’s to buy the latest issue of “Playboy.”
In all its years, though, no person named Dake has ever owned the drug store. The name comes from the original owner, David Klebanoff, who took a few letters from his first and last name and combined them, according to Steve Theodorou, the store’s current co-owner and manager.
Klebanoff originally toyed with “Dakl” but did not like the way it sounded, so he went with “Dake.”
Dake’s takes up less space off of City Avenue than it used to, but Theodorou and co-owner Larry Halper, who purchased the store in the 70s, pride themselves on maintaining its original goal: serving the community. They make deliveries to elderly customers who can’t come to the pharmacy.
They also serve St. Joe’s students who are sent to Dake’s by the Student Health Center to fill their prescriptions. The drug store fills prescriptions for student athletes and members of the Jesuit community as well.
“We’ve always had a good reputation with St. Joe’s,” Theodorou said, although he added some students still don’t know the drug store is there.
One way Dake’s counters that is by being present at St. Joe’s Orientation, to help “get everybody acquainted with what is in the neighborhood,” Clemonts said.
Kenneth Kury, Ph.D., assistant professor of management, said while small businesses value the personal service and community connection, cheaper prices at their bigger competitors pose a challenge.
“Do people put enough value on that personal service to overweigh the price differential?” Kury asked.
Theodorou, who has managed Dake’s since around 2012, said while some prices at Dake’s may be higher, others are competitive. Plus, co-pays for medication covered by insurance are the same no matter where you get the prescription filled.
“Some of the stuff, like over-the-counter stuff, will be cheaper than some of the chains,” Theodorou said. “It will be odd items. It is hit or miss. All in all we do well with over-the-counter stuff and cash prices for prescriptions. Our cash prices for meds are usually significantly less expensive due to the way the chains calculate their prices.”
Kury said “mom and pop shops” like Dake’s can and do establish themselves as leaders in a community. They also form a large part of employment in the United States.
“It could be four employees or it could be five hundred employees, but that group, which are largely family businesses and all the ones not on the stock exchanges, account for over 80 percent of the jobs in the United States,” Kury said.
Galvan said it’s the fact that Dake’s is not a chain that entices her to shop there.
“I like supporting a local, family-owned business,” she said.
Lucy Higgins ’20 worked at Dake’s her freshman and part of her sophomore year. She walked in one day as a customer and inquired about any job openings. Hired as a cashier and stocker, she interacted with the regular customers and familiarized herself with their faces.
“I had never had an experience at Dake’s that didn’t feel personal,” Higgins said. “Every experience I had there felt like I was part of the surrounding community. I felt really welcome in the space.”
