After more than 60 years, a Buckhead pharmacy is evolving
Wender & Roberts sits almost frozen in time in a popular Buckhead shopping center, its red block-letter sign unchanged for decades.
But not for long.
The independent pharmacy and gift shop, which has served Atlanta for more than a century, is relocating for the first time in more than 60 years within the West Paces Ferry Shopping Center.
The center, with tenants that include OK Cafe and Publix, is down the street from grand Buckhead estates such as the Governor’s Mansion.
Wender & Roberts will shrink from about 5,000 square feet to 1,750 square feet, taking another space at the center next to a Starbucks.
Today, the store has a pharmacy and a hodgepodge of gift items, such as decorative plates, other decor and even “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” pillows.
Wender & Roberts is one of the oldest tenants at West Paces Ferry Shopping Center, doors down from the longtime Thomas Barber Shop where Gov. Brian Kemp has gotten a haircut.
The pharmacy, which has the longtime motto, “Where service is still in style,” has its own list of prominent customers, such as the family of the late John Portman Jr., the renowned Atlanta architect and developer.
“It’s the one I went to growing up as a kid with my parents. It’s such a staple for that area,” said son Jarel Portman, founder of JPX Works, which developed the striking towers Lilli Midtown and Emmi Midtown. “We’ve got to treasure the pharmacies like Wender & Roberts because they are so few and far between these days.”
Relocating wasn’t a decision pharmacy owner Loren Pierce said he took lightly. But Wender & Roberts has excess storage and office space it no longer uses, and it needs more modern facilities to serve its customers, he said.
“We need vaccination rooms, consultation rooms, areas for health and wellness, in order to survive for the next generation to come,” Pierce said. “At the end of the day, it’s a math problem, and we just aren’t in a position where I could utilize or repurpose all this extra space.”
Georgia is home to hundreds of independent pharmacies but the industry faces challenges including declining reimbursements, rising costs and increased competition from national retail chains.
“This store is particularly difficult to staff,” Pierce said, because pharmacy technicians can’t afford to live in Buckhead and typically drive in from other parts of metro Atlanta.
He added that Wender & Roberts has had to adapt to changing needs from its customers, such as the rise of GLP-1 weight loss drugs.
At the new location, which should open around October, Pierce said he will still carry products for everyday needs, such as toothpaste, but wants to expand items such as supplements. The pharmacy will still offer some gifts and greeting cards.
“I hope to carry the torch best I can and keep helping the next generation in this community,” Pierce said. “Unlike any other, this community cares about their drugstore.”
Once a community hangout
William Max Wender and Marvin Roberts founded the pharmacy in 1918, with the first location in the heart of Buckhead, at 3073 Peachtree Road.
In its early years, Wender & Roberts served as a community gathering spot, with a soda fountain and lunch counter. It became a popular hangout for teenagers, including students from The Lovett School and The Westminster Schools, according to a 2012 article by longtime Atlanta journalist Joe Earle.
The pharmacy moved to the West Paces Ferry Shopping Center in 1962.
The place held so much meaning to James Dickey that he memorialized Wender & Roberts in his nostalgic 1969 poem, “Looking for the Buckhead Boys.”
“First of all, going home, I must go to Wender and Roberts’ Drug Store,” wrote Dickey, a former U.S. poet laureate well known for his novel “Deliverance.”
Wender & Roberts expanded to multiple locations, including a store in Cobb County, according to a 1974 article in The Atlanta Journal. But only the Buckhead location remains.
Pierce bought the business in 2011, after the death of Donald Wender, the son of the founder and who served as president for many years, according to his obituary.
Donald Wender’s wood-paneled office remains intact at the Buckhead store, though now “it’s just a clutter of records and whatnot,” Pierce said during a tour.
Wender & Roberts has developed a dedicated customer base through the years, Pierce said.
“The unique thing about this store is you can pull up a profile of a family and … you just see multiple generations of people,” he said. “We still have house accounts from 50 years ago.”
Pierce attributes that loyalty to its personalized service.
“Our whole life, you’d walk in and they’d go, ‘We got your prescription ready.’ You didn’t even need to tell them your name,” Jarel Portman said.
The relocation of Wender & Roberts opens a rare vacancy at West Paces Ferry Shopping Center, said Brittany McCall, senior vice president at commercial real estate brokerage SRS Real Estate Partners, which is marketing the space on behalf of the center’s ownership.
“We’re excited to see what uses percolate in that size range that just complements what the center has going on and services the community,” she said.