BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – Rite Aid, the 60-year-old pharmacy chain that operated more than 2,300 stores nationwide as recently as 2023, has been gone for a year, wiped out by last year’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the acquisition of many of its assets by CVS and others.
What remains are its physical buildings, at least 1,200 of them, from Pennsylvania to California. For the past year, across the country, all sorts of businesses have been acquiring and transforming those vacant retail spaces.
One of the latest will be especially noteworthy because it’s right here in Bakersfield.
Bakersfield High senior honored with scholarship
The family of Rupinder Jhaj was already well established in the retail, fueling and fast food businesses when it opened its first Countryside Market in 2005. Twenty-one years later, it is embarking on Countryside Market number seven and some differences will be evident…