Premium offerings showcased at Walgreens' Chicagoland flagship

CHICAGO — Walgreens on Tuesday brought the latest example of its flagship retail pharmacy to life here in Chicago, tantalizing its hometown crowd with departments most shoppers normally wouldn't associate with a pharmacy: a fully stocked sushi bar, quick-and-fresh deli offerings and a self-serve yogurt bar adjacent to a juice bar that, along with the healthy-for-you selection of juice, offers the “double-rich chocolate malted milk” that the retailer invented in 1922.

(To see photos, click here for part 1, click here for part 2, click here for part 3 and click here for part 4.)

And that old Chicagoland taste can be found sprinkled through all the fresh and convenient food offerings — including fresh baked goods from nearby Lovely, Eli's Original Cheesecake and Fanny May chocolates.

Across the first floor is an expansive gourmet wine store — new to the Walgreens format — replete with specialty cheeses and meats and two separate touchscreen kiosks — one that can help pair that perfect wine with that evening's meal and the other to help break down all of the ingredients for that to-die-for cocktail.

Up the escalator to the second floor of the 22,000 sq. ft. in selling space is the latest Look Boutique with its nail salon, a Take Care Clinic and a "bridge" pharmacy, where the pharmacist no longer is tied to a mortar and pestle and instead is front-and-center with the patient. "[Our pharmacists] can actually begin to practice at the highest level of their license," Kermit Crawford, president of pharmacy, health and wellness services and solutions, told Drug Store News during a tour of the new store.

The Maybelline touchscreen beauty kiosk, originally featured at the 40 Wall St. location in New York, now is Facebook-enabled so users can share their latest looks with their closest 200 friends. Two endcaps across from the pharmacy also feature interactive touchscreens. One features information on smoking cessation, for example.

And all of the beauty and over-the-counter shelves are illuminated with LED lights, another new element, that at the same time presents a really fresh look and feel across the departments and affords older shoppers an easier time shopping — they can better read the labels.