Rite Aid Shuts Down All Locations Following Bankruptcy

PHILADELPHIA — Rite Aid officially closed all their locations Friday after filling for bankruptcy earlier this year.

The drugstore chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May this year after previously filling in 2023. They closed hundreds of locations in just a few months and now announced all stores are gone.  

“All Rite Aid stores have now closed. We thank our loyal customers for their many years of support,” a message on their website read.

Though locations are closed, customers who used Rite Aid for prescriptions and to get vaccines can request their history online, according to their website. 

It’s unclear exactly how many locations closed, but in May this year roughly the company ran more than 2,300 stores in 17 states before the filing.

Court documents following the bankruptcy announcement in May revealed Rite Aid initially planned to close 47 stores. Updated documents first expanded this list to include an additional 68 stores, then another 95 locations were added, followed by 151 more stores and then 111 disclosed in a May 30 filing.  

Philadelphia-based Rite Aid was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as Thrif D Discount Center. The company had struggled with debt, posted annual losses for several years and was cutting costs and closing stores well before its initial bankruptcy filing.

Rite Aid also explored sale offers.

Walgreens attempted to buy it for about $9.4 billion a decade ago, when Rite Aid ran more than 4,600 stores. But the larger drugstore chain eventually scaled back its ambition and bought less than half that total to get the deal past antitrust regulators.

In 2018, Rite Aid called off a separate merger with the grocer Albertsons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.