‘Everything has a sunset’: Ashworth’s, Cary’s oldest downtown pharmacy, is closing

Ashworth Drugs has been at the heart of downtown Cary since 1957 when the town was only a few square miles.

Now, after 65 years of filling prescriptions and hot dog and orangeade orders, the store on West Chatham Street is closing its doors.

Owner Ralph Ashworth, 91, has run the drug store with family and friends, providing free delivery to make it easier for many residents, especially retirees and other seniors, to get their medicines.

The store has been a constant amid the development of downtown Cary.

Located at 105 W. Chatham St., Ashworth Drugs is closed for now but will reopen on Feb. 21 to sell off its remaining food and other inventory. The second floor Lynn’s Hallmark Shop, opened in 1969, will still be operating. The Ashworth family, who own the building, will look for new businesses to continue their legacy of being a community store.

‘Everything has a sunset’

In 1957, Ashworth and his wife, Daphne, graduated from UNC, searching for a new opportunity. With degrees in pharmacy and medical technology, the couple wanted to open their own pharmacy in town. Back then, downtown Cary was a sleepy town. There was no recreation center, no library and consisted mostly of a main street.

“She and I ran the store for years by ourselves. She worked all the time like I did and kept the books and took care of the counter,” Ashworth said. “She was invaluable for me, just wonderful. She worked harder than I did.”

Daphne Ashworth died in 2018. They had been married for 62 years.

Ashworth, a Fuquay-Varina native, said the decision to close the store was not an easy one but necessary. Paul, the youngest of his two sons, has been the store’s pharmacist for 30 years.

He is retiring this year and wants to do something new. None of Ashworth’s six grandchildren studied pharmacy medicine and could take over the family business, he said.

“Everything has a sunset, and everything has an end,” Ashworth said. “Paul is retiring, and we had no opportunity and no good prospects, so we had to get with the best prospect we could get.”

According to state law, the Ashworths had to find a pharmacy to take over the prescriptions so people could still fill them. The transfer of the prescriptions required a non-disclosure clause, Ashworth said, restricting the family from telling any customers about the closure until everything was finalized, which was Wednesday.

“I’m upset people think that we just closed down, and they didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “Of course, I feel bad about that. We’ve had wonderful customers all these years. I’ve got third- and fourth-generation people, and it’s like a big family. I’m going to miss them all sitting around and telling them jokes.”

Ashworth said the change is significant for him because for the last 67 years, plus the two years that he worked in a pharmacy in Fuquay-Varina, he has to find something new to do.

A community store with deep history

By the mid-1960s, Cary began to see a slight boom in growth with the addition of IBM in Research Triangle Park. Then, Ashworth said the store became more popular for new residents.

Katherine Loflin, a town historian, said the legacy of Ashworth Drugs can be linked back to 1857 when the Masonic Lodge operated in the space where Ashworth stands. Frank Page, the first mayor of Cary, sold the land in 1859 for a commercial space that later became known as the cafe and store, Uncle Bob’s Corner, owned by Robert “Bob” Harrison, a mayor of Cary and owner of Harrison Wagon Works.

In the late 1960s, Ashworth Drugs became the meetup for the “Doghouse Crew,” a group of racially diverse men, including Ashworth, who would come together to talk about the town’s happenings.

“In that space which Ralph continued brilliantly was, he became like Uncle Bob, and his store on that corner became the hangout for people, for high schoolers. it was the place where they had their first job,” Loflin said. “They took over the responsibility to maintain a small town atmosphere.”

Loflin said many people think Ashworth’s is one of the reasons why Cary can still get away with being called a town, even though with over 174,000 residents, it can be considered a city.

“Ashworth’s nuclear of that store is what provided continuity,” she said. “I think what we’re seeing right now is a far of that broken connection to the continuity. People are already a little nervous about all the changes (downtown).”

‘The Ashworth experience’

Since news broke on social media of the store’s closure, the Cary community has shared photos and fond memories of the store for 65 years.

Cindy Brewington Sinkez, president of the Cary Town Band, remembers working in Ashworth’s Village, made up of small businesses, and also ordering lunch from the drug store. Now, she uses the bulletin board outside of the drug store to advertise upcoming band shows and see what’s happening in the town.

“Al, who worked the soda counter, was always amazing, just the nicest person,” she said. “I had a couple of favorites, and if he knew it was me that was ordering (on the phone), he would send an employee over.”

The Ashworths “were always genuinely happy to see you and always really cared about what was going on with the community and the families that lived here,” Sinkez said.

“We’re having a big hole left by Ashworth’s closing,” she said. “(The store) has just sort of been that neighborhood feel. I think we’re going to miss that.”

Sheila Ogle, the last owner of The Pink House in Downtown Cary, graduated from Cary High School when the school used to live on Dry Avenue, where Cary Arts Center is now located. She remembers walking from the school with her friends to get a soda or lemonade.

The store has always hired teenagers to work at the soda counter and Ashworth employed his family to work there, bringing even more familiar faces to the community pharmacy, Ogle said in an interview.

“Then, we all grew up and had families and my children both had the same experience there, and their children did too. So my grandson has had the great experience of being able to walk down from the Pink House to Ashworth’s to get a hot dog,” Ogle said. “It’s really been wonderful to have a community pharmacy. ... Let’s call it the Ashworth experience.”

Though Ogle said her insurance company would love it if she filled her prescriptions at a nearby CVS or Walgreens, she always loved walking from her house to the drug store across the street.

“When my late husband was sick, (an employee) would walk across the street to bring me medicine,” Ogle said. “You just don’t get that kind of service with the larger pharmacies. It’s just a different feel.”

Ogle selling the Pink House last summer was a shock to many Cary residents who are on the fence about the changing of downtown, fearing the area would no longer have a small town feel. She said changes, like the closure of Ashworth Drugs, were a good thing.

“Time marches on, and we have to adjust to that. How many businesses can leave a legacy and the memories that Ashworth is leaving?” Ogle said. “What an opportunity for some new business to come in the Ashworth building.”

‘I’m happy’

One of Ashworth’s fondest memories of the drugstore is its 50th anniversary celebration 2007. It attracted residents from all over the town, the Fuquay-Varina town band performed, and they fed over 1,000 people.

Ashworth has lived in the same house 10 minutes from the pharmacy for over 40 years and plans to continue contributing to the town he loves, the friends he’s made, traveling, and enjoying life.

“I’ve had a good life, a good career and I’m happy,” he said. “That’s what matters.”