Closing CVS in Oakland like a family breaking up Popular store was fixture in the area for nearly 50 years

Rinie Riemann packs up Top Dog, which is slated to close along with CVS in Oakland. Rinie Riemann packs up Top Dog, which is slated to close along with CVS in Oakland. Photo: James Tensuan, The Chronicle Photo: James Tensuan, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close Closing CVS in Oakland like a family breaking up 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

A little bit of consumer joy will die in Oakland on Saturday when the mother of all convenience stores shuts off its fluorescent lights for the final time.

CVS, nee Payless, nee Rite Aid, nee Longs, will close at 6 p.m. Saturday after a reign of almost 50 years at the corner of 51st Street and Broadway in Rockridge. For many in the East Bay, the 87,000-square-foot store wasn't just a place to buy magazines at 3 a.m., it was the thumping heartbeat of Oakland's retail life.

"Everyone in town came here. It literally had everything we ever needed," said Naomi Willis, a retired investigator and lifelong Oaklander who was among the hundreds of customers who paid their last respects Friday. "I always felt they took good care of me here, whether I needed a prescription or socks for my grandchildren. Who's going to take care of me now?"

The store is slated to be demolished by the end of the summer, and Safeway plans to build a new "lifestyle store" on the site as part of the larger overhaul of the Rockridge Shopping Center.

CVS, which many customers still call Payless, was a shell of it former self on Friday. All that was left, pretty much, were Father's Day cards, 6-packs of marigolds and large quantities of Barefoot Chardonnay.

Waxing nostalgic

But there were plenty of memories. Shoppers waxed nostalgically about the days when they could buy motor oil, garden mulch, lipstick, Oakland Raiders fabric, milk and watch batteries, all in one trip.

"It was best when it was Longs," said one octogenarian who described herself as a native Oaklander. "You could get your cigarettes and whiskey. Now that was a good store."

James Garner, a construction worker from Pinole, went there for fishing gear.

"My mom brought me here as a kid. I remember getting lost because it was so big," he said. "Now I'll have to go somewhere else, probably more expensive."

Air of sadness

Many of the staff had worked there for decades. They've all been reassigned to other stores, but an air of sadness still pervaded the check stands on Friday. A clerk named Fe, who declined to give her last name, said the staff was bereft.

"We're like a family," she said. "It was always nice people here, nice customers. Everyone is sad. It's our family breaking apart."

For some, the prime attraction was Top Dog, home of fresh kielbasa and bratwurst and a heavy dollop of libertarian, or perhaps Marxist, dogma. The popular hot dog stand inside CVS was plastered with political literature of an extreme variety, which customers seemed to appreciate almost as much as the sauerkraut.

"It was just wonderful dynamics here," said Top Dog co-owner Rinie Riemann, who was packing up boxes Friday as she prepared to relocate the shop to Lakeshore Avenue. "People would talk to each other. They shared tables. Parents with babies, seniors, teenagers, the staff, everyone. I'm really going to miss it."

Shoppers bird-watch

Another attraction, for some, was bird-watching. Swallows and other songbirds nested in the eaves, hung around the nursery and dabbled in the water-filled quarry next door. It wasn't unusual to see shoppers hoisting binoculars in the parking lot.

The irony of CVS' closure is that big convenience stores like Target are thriving in the suburbs, noted Oakland historian Naomi Schiff. If it wasn't for corporate shuffling, the giant store on 51st Street would probably be thriving, too, she said.

After all, Oakland and its urban environs have very few general merchandisers, especially now that the downtown Sears is slated to close.

"I remember going to that Payless at 10 p.m. when my kid forgot something for a science project, and I'd run into all the other parents," she said. "Anytime you needed miscellaneous, random things, that's where you'd go."