Business of the Month: Grove Apothecary, 302 West 12th Street

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Shaving cream locked behind glass to ward off marauding gangs of shaving cream shoplifters. A 20-minute wait to see what surprises our Darwinian health care system has in store. Shelf after shelf of products harboring suspicious ingredients that the FDA deems safe (but no other civilized country’s agency does). A visit to a branch of a drugstore chain might just convince you that we are, as the White House claims, living in a hellscape. If you step, however, into our October Business of the Month, Grove Apothecary at 302 West 12th Street (at Eighth Avenue), you’ll find deliverance from this pharmaceutical inferno, encountering instead prompt, personalized service, Virgilian guidance through the dysfunction of our health insurance system, imported beauty products, and shaving cream within a hands’ reach.

Grove Apothecary has been serving Greenwich Village since the days of the FDR Administration (and weren’t those the days). It launched as Grove Drugs in 1940 on Grove Street, where it remained in operation until 1990, when it moved to its current location, facing Abingdon Square (which, like all squares in Greenwich Village, is not actually a square). For decades, the shop was owned by John Duffy (a.k.a., J.D.), a much-loved figure in the community. When he decided to retire, he looked for buyers with experience running an independent pharmacy and well equipped to build on the store’s legacy.

Shaili Patel came to the United States from her native India to attend pharmacy school. Upon graduation, she worked her way up the ranks at CVS, becoming a district supervisor in charge of 20 branches on the West Coast. Along the way, she encountered aspects of the operation that went against the patient-oriented ethic that had led her to pharmacy school to begin with. Pharmacists were expected to meet prescription-filling quotas. Performance operating reports tallied everything from typing and phone-answering speed to checkout transaction efficiency. Although Shaili had some degree of control over hiring decisions, she had none over the decision to keep staffing spare so as to reduce payroll expenses. Each branch received a “value score” that corporate would then compare against benchmarks, in order to identify stores with value-improvement needs. None of this worked out well for customers (unless they also happened to be CVS shareholders). And this did not sit well with Shaili. But then one day she fell in love with her future husband — and he worked at an independent drugstore.

Shaili found it hard to believe that her husband’s drugstore seldom had lines at the prescription counter. And she came to witness this and other differences first-hand when she moved to the city and took a position at a neighborhood pharmacy. The experience instilled in her the desire to one day own her local drugstore. Just a few years later, that opportunity came knocking at her door, when J.D. approached her to gauge her interest in buying Grove Apothecary. In 2022, after a transitional period, Shaili took over the enduring establishment.

Longstanding customers would be hard pressed to find significant changes at Grove Apothecary since J.D. retired. Shaili retained his staff, some which had been at Grove for decades. And more importantly, she became little by little personally acquainted with her clientele and their medical histories. This has allowed her to provide the same level of service that the drugstores’ customers have long enjoyed, reaching out to doctors to solve matters on patients’ behalf, providing free, same-day delivery service, and tailoring medicament packaging to patients’ needs and preferences. Shaili cannot come close to matching a chain drugstore’s profit margins (not the least because insurance companies often reimburse chains at preferential rates), but she does not have to. She is not, after all, in the business of generating shareholder value; she is in the business of providing a valuable service. And in that, Grove Apothecary easily outcompetes its chained counterparts.

The personalized treatment that Shaili can offer goes beyond the dispensation of medication. She also caters to customers’ tastes and requests in her selection of over-the-counter merchandise. As a result, Grove Apothecary stocks a variety of beauty and health products that you wouldn’t find at your average store. Highlights abound: 

• The Mario Badescu line, family-owned, made in the U.S.A. (Edison, NJ!) products for plumping your thirsty skin!

• SACHAJUAN, hair products developed through algae bioscience and Swedish-made from materials sourced from within the EU (Brittany!), abiding by its environmental and regulatory standards. 

• California Baby, children body care products blended and packaged in their certified organic, solar-powered domestic facility; and Mustela, French and B-Corp-certified children toiletries. 

• Embryolisse (including cult-favorite Lait-Crème Concentré), professional-level skin hydration that goes on smooth and dry!

• The super popular Super Goop and the reef-friendly Blue Lizard, broad-spectrum sunblock for different skin types, made with clean ingredients. 

• Savon Liquide de Marseille, a traditionally manufactured soap using natural ingredients in collaboration with master perfumers from Grasse (the perfumery tradition of which is recognized in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list). 

• Dr. Bronner’s castile soap, a plant-based multipurpose cleaner in all sizes and configurations made-in-California with raw materials sourced through fair trade partnerships. 

• Biafine, an ultra-potent emulsion that will soothe and promote the healing of your damaged skin. 

• Osea, family-owned, vegan, sustainable, and California-made skincare. 

• A container so that you can safely dispose of your medicine. 

And if they were not enough, the store puts up amazing seasonal vitrines that, notwithstanding the over-lingering scaffolding outside, enliven this corner of the neighborhood. BOO!

For its long standing commitment to personalized service and to welcoming us like neighbors and helping us leave, well-soaped, well-moisturized, and well-medicated, we are thrilled to name Grove Apothecary our October 2025 Business of the Month. 

What special small business would you like to see featured next? Just click here to nominate our next one. Thank you! #shoplocalnyc

Here is a map of all our Businesses of the Month: