RICHMOND, Va. -- For more than a century, Stuart Circle Pharmacy was a place where you could pick up odds and ends and enjoy a quick bite or milkshake at the Stuart Circle Fountain and Grill.
It all came to an end in June 1995. Owner and pharmacist Richard Hoffarth said the decision to close the business (prescriptions were transferred to the West Broad Revco) was difficult.
"The opportunity was such that I thought it was time to change," he said in a 1995 interview with CBS 6.
Loyal customers and diners at the grill did not seem to agree.
"I hate to see it go. Things change and you have to change along with them," 70-year-old Macklin Columber told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1995. "It was a landmark."
Looking back, while the neighborhood lost a landmark, it gained another longtime fixture.
Kuba Kuba moved into the Park Avenue space in 1998 and hasn't stopped serving Cuban sandwiches and plantains.
"My greatest memory of that store is that it was a neighborhood place. If there was ever a bastion of the neighborhood -- it's that corner," Charlie Diradour, who owns the building, said. "I'm glad Manny (Mendez) bought the place because Manny is a neighborhood guy. I'm glad that neighborhood anchor is still there."
The video in this story aired in June 1995. The CBS 6 Video Vault is available on the WTVR CBS 6 streaming channel (Roku, Apple TV) and YouTube.
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