Word: billingses
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Look up "Mom-and-Pop drugstore" in the dictionary. If Billings & Stover Apothecaries isn't pictured, it ought to be. The unremarkable storefront at 41A Brattle St. is easily disregarded and certainly no competition for the brightly lit establishments of Brattle Square. But from those who notice it, Billings & Stover...
The casual shopper will find more perfume at Billings & Stover than in a duty-free store, while the back wall is dedicated to a pharmacy/apothecary. The right side of the aisle, on the other hand, could be mistaken for any other drug-store in the Square, though the occasional oddities...
Although the store has been in operation since 1854, it lost much of its original decorative finery over the years. Although soda fountains typically evoke the fifties, Billings and Stover actually abandoned their original design in 1947, concentrating revenue reinvestment efforts on the store's pharmaceutical business.
In recent years, however, increased competition from national chains such as CVS left Billings and Stover struggling to survive. By the middle of 1994, Madanian says she was ready to try anything to stay in business. So she recreated (as best she could) the store's original soda fountain.
Nostalgia is big these days, and given the climate of revival, it should come as no surprise that an old-fashioned drug store in Harvard Square is doing brisk business catering to our collective yearning for authentic Americana. However, the attention that Billings and Stover has garnered, along with its...