Oak Lawn Pharmacy Started a Revolution

It was a revolutionary idea that Ed Barcus, a practicing pharmacist in Chicago, came up with back in the 1950s. 

After relocating to the growing suburb of Oak Lawn, Barcus began to notice a troubling trend among his competitors. If a patient was discharged from the hospital during the early hours of the morning, they needed to wait until the store's regular hours to fill their prescriptions. This frequently left the patients waiting, in pain, for their pharmacist to arrive for work.

Barcus, distraught at the thought of making customers wait longer than necessary, started the first 24-hour pharmacy in Illinois at 4708 West 103rd St.

Taking up residence in a small bedroom behind his self-named business, Barcus could be reached at any hour of the day. Installing a button at the pharmacy’s door, customers could simply ring the bell and receive their medication within 15 minutes. At the time, no other pharmacy offered such speedy service and Barcus’s tiny store grew quickly.

When Barcus passed away suddenly in the early 1960s, the pharmacy was sold to Bill Robbins, who continued to uphold his predecessor’s exceptional customer service standards. During the population explosion that hit Southland that decade, the pharmacy’s reputation for filling prescriptions with a smile drew in even more people as Oak Lawn’s borders expanded.

As Robbins neared his retirement, he decided to put the pharmacy up for sale. It soon caught the eye of Art and Sandy De Pesa, a husband-and-wife team that knew about the tradition of excellence that Barcus had cultivated.

Sandy, whose father had trained in the medical field after World War II, heard about the impending sale from a drug representative. Building off of the couple’s extensive experience in the pharmaceutical field, the De Pesas purchased the business in 1989.

“The trade has definitely changed since we took over,” Art explained to Oak Lawn Patch. “Although we are competing with large mail-order companies, we have dozens of loyal customers that have been coming here for decades”.

The De Pesas have since expanded the floor space of the pharmacy and acquired an automatic pill dispenser that electronically counts and distributes medications with the push of a button. While these innovations have no doubt made Art and Sandy’s jobs easier, the true heart of the business comes down to customer service. And after being in operation for more than 20 years, the De Pesas have accumulated quite a collection of entertaining stories from their work.

Back during the 1990s, when the Beanie Babies craze struck the country, Art placed a small advertisement in a local newspaper, offering a free plush animal to each customer when they filled their prescription. 

“When I arrived in the morning,” Art recalled, “There was a line of almost 300 people stretching around the bowling alley and to the front door of Jewel”.

Thinking quickly, Art phoned his off-duty employees, who raced to the pharmacy to help with the crowds.

While toy crazes and memorable customers may make for entertaining after-work conversation, Art and Sandy remain firm in their commitment to continuing the legacy that Ed Barcus laid down over 50 years ago.

“Many independents have long since closed their doors in Oak Lawn,” Art remarked, “but hearing that people enjoy the services we provide makes me feel proud to come into work each and every day. What more could I ask for?”