End Of An Era: Central Drug Store To Close After Decades

The owners of Excelsior’s Central Drug Store announced the decades-old business will close.

Owner and pharmacist Jerry Tonelli, who took over sole operations in 2023, said he would retire and the family, collectively, wanted to embark on a new phase in life including spending more time with their loved ones. The store’s last day will be July 15.

“It’s exciting and sad,” Tonelli told The Light. “It’s hard, especially being in the same neighborhood and all the people we’ve known over the years that have come in here. We’ve known their families and kids and then their kid’s kids as they’ve gotten older so it’s been a real experience for me.”

Tonelli added that he had considered closing the store last year but ultimately decided against it for financial reasons.

Many pharmacies have closed in the last few years since more people are having medication sent by mail and other factors.

Dino and Elsie Tonelli took over from George De Vencenzi in 1965 and has been passed down from generation to generation ever since. Jerry Tonelli stepped into the store’s operations alongside his mother, Elsie, when Dino died in 1991. Elsie died in January 2023.

Joelle Kenealey, president of the Outer Mission Merchants And Residents Association, called the closure of a San Francisco Legacy Business a loss for the neighborhood but saw the silver lining.

“Jerry’s going out on his terms, and I think that's great, especially in this day and age,” Kenealey said. “He did survive longer than any other publicly traded pharmacy such as Walgreens and CVS. They’ll be deeply missed in the community.”

District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen, who represents the Excelsior, parts of Ingleside and surrounding neighborhoods, said operating pharmacies has become cost prohibitive “due to pharmaceutical costs and unscrupulous reimbursement rates set by Pharmacy Benefit Managers,” third-party companies that siphon profits.

“Many of the local pharmacists who have operated businesses in our neighborhoods for decades are starting to retire and the business is too expensive to continue to operate under new ownership,” Chen said in a statement. “I have been meeting regularly with local pharmacists to try and find long-lasting solutions that don’t leave our most vulnerable without access to their medication."

The Tonelli family has prided themselves on creating a friendly, safe and welcoming establishment including their dedication to one-on-one personal relationship building with their customers. In the closure announcement, the family noted their pride on outlasting several of the bigger drug-store chains like Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid who had come and gone from the neighborhood over the years.

In September of last year, the family and the community celebrated a commemorative street sign that was dedicated to the late Elsie Tonelli, honoring her and her family's decades of service in the neighborhood.

“I’ve been here for 34 years so that says something about working here, just the environment,” pharmacist Augustina “Gus” Arellano said. “I’ll never find a job like this.”