Customers at the Rexall Pharmacy on Maple Avenue have been confused for the past few weeks. "They come in looking for them. They ask, 'What's going on, where's Bob and Kay?' It's like Town Hall is missing," said Larry Jones, a manager at the pharmacy.
After 24 years, Bob and Kay Price closed the lunch counter at the pharmacy on Jan. 23. Bob Price has been diagnosed with cancer, and the couple have moved to Georgia to live with their daughter.
"This is heartbreaking for us," Kay Price said.
"Everybody that came in was sad to see them go," said Juanita Mathews of Vienna. Mathews was a regular, visiting the lunch counter every day, sometimes twice a day. "Bob and Kay were friends to everybody. If you weren't when you came in, you were when you left."
The counter was best known for its hamburgers and milkshakes, said Donna Aghabeh, a pharmacy manager. More than the food, the counter was known for the atmosphere. "This was more of a homey thing," Aghabeh said.
"I asked my wife to marry me at this counter," Jones said.
THE PRICES ran the counter like an old-style business. "They used to let you run a tab," Aghabeh said.
"There were people that came in here and wanted to eat and didn't have any money, and they'd feed them," Mathews said. "They had done this all their life. They were service people."
Regulars came in every day to swap stories, Mathews said. "If you want to know anything, come to the counter," she said. "There's no other place like this one. You came in, and all your friends congregated and ate and talked. … I think everybody's trying to get over it."
Now that Bob and Kay Price have left, the counter, which has been a fixture at the Vienna pharmacy since it opened around 1950, will likely be removed, Aghabeh said.
"If someone came in, they'd need a new license and new machines," said Dr. Bob Borgatti, owner of the pharmacy.
"Bob and Kay had their following here," Jones said. "With all the restaurants and fast-food places, it would just be too hard for someone new."
THE PHARMACY will likely remove the fixtures and install new shelving for more inventory. "We're still going to be the local pharmacy," Aghabeh said.
The cancer came on quickly, said Kay Price. They didn't really know Bob Price was sick until shortly before they left the area. "We didn't think we'd be going out this fast," she said. Bob Price had undergone surgery in this area before they moved to Georgia, Kay Price said, and he is now preparing for another round.
"We were there 24 years," said Kay Price. "It's a long time." She said that she missed the business and most of all the customers. "Some fine people I'll tell you. … All our love to everybody. I thank them for all their support. We'll miss them."