Pay 'n Save's Portland stores

Pay 'n Save drug stores were a fixture in Washington state, and other parts of the Pacific Northwest from the 1960s through the very early 1990s.  The chain's blue and green logo was a familiar part of the retail landscape from Alaska to Wyoming.  The chain was eventually acquired by Thrifty Drugs, which was acquired by PayLess Drugs, which itself was acquired by Rite Aid.

I had always been under the impression that Pay 'n Save had no Oregon stores,  In reality, the chain operated up to three stores in the Portland areas from approximately 1964 to 1981.  The stores were located at Lloyd Center, Eastport Plaza and in Beaverton.

The earliest reference to the stores I can find in the Portland phone directory is 1964, where two locations are listed:

• Eastport Plaza:4100 SE 82nd Ave, Portland
• Lloyd Center: 1421 Lloyd Center, Portland

(Please note that I don't have access to a complete collection of phone directories, so it is entirely possible these stores opened earlier than 1964.)

By 1974, and additional store was listed in Beaverton:

• Raleighwest, 6555 Beaverton-Hillsdale Rd, Beaverton

However, by 1979, this location was no longer listed.

By 1981, only the Eastport location remained, and this is the last reference I can find in the phone directories available.

I would guess that Pay 'n Save had planned a larger store network in the area, but this never became a reality.  I would also guess that strong local competition (from both PayLess Drugs and Fred Meyer) made this hard to achieve.  It's also possible that the financial problems the store chain experienced later in the decade contributed to the decision to abandon the Portland market.  These problems were ultimately responsible for the sale of the chain to Thrifty Drugs in the mid-1980s, not that long after the Eastport store closed.

While offering good value, Pay 'n Save was a fairly standard drug store, broadly similar to PayLess.  The chain probably didn't really offer anything extraordinary that would have caused Portland shoppers to abandon the local competition they were used to shopping, and come to Pay 'n Save instead.