“It fitted with his idea of a pharmacy back home, I did a test of how many of my friends could spell 'apothecary,' and how many knew what it meant, and both of those were depressing results.”
“We like to think we sell necessary luxuries. You may not buy a new TV, but you will buy a really great bar of soap for $8 because it's a nice little treat for yourself.”
“I don't think there were ever lots of European-style apothecaries in the United States because you would have needed a high concentration of customers, a community big enough to support that kind of a local store. In America you might have been able to find a few of the personal care products from Europe, but the people bringing them in and selling them were delis because those were the stores with the most direct connection to those ethnic groups.”
