Iconic retail chain closes over 100 stores in bankruptcy

The pharmaceutical industry's leading drugstore chains have restructured and reorganized their businesses out of court and in bankruptcy cases over the last five years as they strive to survive fierce competition.

As the Covid pandemic subsided in 2020, drugstore retailers began to reevaluate their businesses, which included closing hundreds of stores.

💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter💰💵

Once retailers began to fully reopen after the pandemic, many began to close stores, blaming shrinkage, or loss of inventory, on rampant retail theft. Other economic challenges cited by retailers included rising costs of labor and products driven by inflation, locations that no longer made economic sense to remain open, and increased interest rates on debt obligations.

Competition from big-box retail chains like Walmart, Target, and Costco, as well as internet drug providers like Amazon and Mark Cuban's CostPlus Drug Company, reduced store foot traffic and led retailers to shut underperforming locations.

Walgreens, which operates about 8,600 stores with 6,000 profitable locations, evaluated 2,000 stores for potential closure and identified 1,200 locations to shutter, with 500 set to close in fiscal year 2025.

Drugstore chain CVS in 2021 revealed it would close 900 of its nearly 9,900 stores to reduce costs and cut losses, closing 300 locations each year in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

CVS closes over 270 stores in 2025

The company expanded the store closing campaign in 2025, revealing in its annual report in February that it would close 271 more stores this year.

Competition for the pharmacy dollar will be significantly reduced as a major drugstore chain will soon close its doors forever, unless an investor swoops in to reopen the retailer, which plans to go out of business.

Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the first time on Oct. 15, 2023, and closed about 800 of its 2,100 stores as part of a reorganization plan.

The drugstore chain filed for Chapter 11 protection a second time on May 5, 2025, as New Rite Aid LLC, and has begun closing all of its stores, consisting of about 1,240 locations.

Rite Aid is closing 100s of its store locations.

Image source: Elconin/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Rite Aid closes 123 more store locations

Rite Aid filed its ninth notice of additional store closing locations with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey on June 27, seeking approval to close 123 additional stores and liquidate their assets, which adds to previously designated locations for closing, for a total of 1,070 of its stores.

The debtor's ninth additional closing notice consists of store closures in 8 states, including California (42), Pennsylvania (41), New York (18), New Jersey (9), Washington (6), New Hampshire (4), Connecticut (2), and Maryland (1).

More bankruptcy:

Rite Aid already filed nine notices of store closing locations with the original notice and an additional closing notice on May 9, a second additional closing notice on May 15, a third additional notice on May 23, a fourth additional notice on May 30, fifth and sixth additional notices on June 6, a seventh additional notice on June 13, and an eighth additional notice on June 20.

The first nine groups of store closings listed 947 locations in 15 states, including California (277), Pennsylvania (263), New York (141), Washington (59), New Hampshire (41), New Jersey (39), Oregon (32), Virginia (25), Delaware (26), Maryland (19), Connecticut (11), Idaho (6), Massachusetts (4), Vermont (2), and Ohio (2).

Rite Aid will likely file one or two more additional store closing notices before its bankruptcy case closes, since it plans to close all of its stores, estimated at about 1,240.