Duane Reade

Always have a good selection of snacks and drinks. Very clean, rarely a line for the register. Always check the front end cap for the weekly soecial, they don’t dissapoint. Oh… and they have a REDBOX!

I move around a lot and so I have to go to a lot of pharmacies to get my medications. I’ve been using Walgreens/​Duane reade for about 3 years, and this is my favorite one that I have been to.
I came here when I got my tattoo and asked the pharmacist to help me find the right soap for cleaning it. She was extremely helpful and scoured the aisles with me until we found what I needed.
I also tend to have a lot of issues whenever I try refilling my prescriptions, and the pharmacists here are always very patient and helpful. They follow up in a timely manner and it’s never too busy.
The store itself is pretty big and well-​organized, but I mostly just come for the pharmacy.

Clean, accessible and fairly well stocked. Employees were very nice, helpful and efficient.

I can’t speak definitively about this location in general, but I had a hard-​to-​find prescription and Fashionette totally went above and beyond. I had give to three pharmacies, one another Duane Reade, one a CVS, one independently-​owned, and none if them had my script. They told me to figure it out and check another location or come back on a different day. This location didn’t have it either but Fashionette was kind, smart, and extraordinarily helpful. Unlike other clerks in other pharmacies, she really listened and helped me. She made a few calls and found a location that had my script and asked that they expedite it. Right now I’m leaving the other DR location after only waiting 5 min because of her call. Thanks, Fashionette!

Completely unaware of the acquisition, I had placed an order on the Walgreens site for a free 8×10 and it listed this DR as a potential pickup location. Selected it with some trepidation and was surprised when they had my print in the photo section here (though I needed to walk around the lower level for a while to get help, from a PHARMACIST). Staff was friendly and the store inoffensive so can’t justify docking a star for that.

We realize that the escalators in Duane Reade’s just don’t work. Period.
It’s a drugstore, that’s it.
Well lit and laid out. It works for me.

Although my most frequent visits to this Duane Reade location consists of getting cash from the Chase ATM’s, I have stepped inside this establishment to buy other things, more than twice.
One thing that seems to happen all the time here though, is that they are severely understaffed. Lines can stretch, and time spent with a particular customer can get ridiculously long. I’d avoid coming here in a pinch, and instead come when you have time to kill.

The first time I actually considered shop lifting– the employees could pay for my yogurt out of their wages, considering the time they made me wait in line for it.
At first, I thought the one guy behind the counter was just in over his head– about 10 of us were in line, and he was frantically calling over the loud speaker «Devon to front registers, Devon to the front!» between customers. But Devon was no where to be found. Finally, a woman and man saunter out of the back, chatting up a storm, give no indication that they see the line, and DON’T HELP OUT. They just start to chat to the guy actually working, slowing it up more! And then employee A decides to go on a break, so Devon steps in, while the woman again waddles to the back of the store, not even glancing at the line.
Bad management or just bad employees?

The store itself has a little bit of everything — there’s a downstairs with a few household supplies and cards, and the main floor has snacks, personal items, and hygiene items.
But Kaylee is right… staff definitely doesn’t feel like they want to be there.
And the sodas aren’t cold in any of the fridges in the back, despite the overly loud sound of compressors working.

I love this place just because it’s literally two minutes away from my where I live, and it’s got pretty much everything I need on a daily basis. However, the staff at this particular store never smile, and they always sound like helping you check out at the cash register is the last thing they ever want to do.
Despite how awesome the store itself is, I’d rather walk a another two blocks over to Walgreens instead.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Despite the fact that the staff at Duane Reade often resembles a rowdy group of ex-​cons, I still love it. Growing up in New York allows me to have unnatural attachments to certain things, like the ability to check how much money is on my metro card before boarding the subway, the over abundance of carbohydrates, and Duane Reade. It’s just one of those places that have everything you need. This is how people in the suburbs must feel about Wal-​Mart. I guess the main difference is that Duane Reade doesn’t sell clothes, but let’s face it, what self-​respecting New Yorker would buy clothes at the same place they buy their toilet paper and birth control. But I digress. Where else can you go at 11:30 at night and buy cheese-​less pizza, beer, and allergy medicine? Duane Reade. The term ‘convenience store’ has never made more sense. I get warm and fuzzy inside when I think about it. Maybe everything is ridiculously overpriced. Get over it. That’s the price you pay for convenience, and for living in Manhattan. Maybe their version of a ‘bonus program’ is completely unrewarding. So what. Do you ever actually use the coupons that CVS gives you before they expire? I think not. And what’s more classic, more New York than shopping at a store that was literally named after the two streets on which the original intersected? Duane Reade, like the wonderful city you represent, you will always have my heart.

Not bad on the scale of Duane Reade. The property opened just before the rebranding of Duane Reade across the city, so the improvements aren’t immediately apparent from outside.
Aisles are nice and wide. The overall layout is actually pretty good. Grocery-​type goods are on the street level; everything else is in the basement. Movement between the floors is easy, thanks to a prominently placed escalator. Compared to many of its peers, the store is quite clean.
Decent selection of stuff, not particularly hard to find on the shelves.
Staff is not exactly happy and smiley, but they do their jobs. Pharmacy staff is generally pleasant and helpful.