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Published on 02/17/1997 All articles from this issue

Store's lasting legacy

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By Clyde Noel

Town Crier Staff Writer

Kahn's Corner Pharmacy chronicles 58 years of Los Altos development

The year was 1939, and Los Altos was still a small place. It had hitching posts along Main Street with only five or six businesses in town. At the corner of First and Main streets, J and S Pharmacy was for sale and any building transaction had to go through Paul Shoup, one of the early Los Altos developers.

A San Francisco pharmacist named Samuel "Sam" Kahn bought the pharmacy, located in the same building where Mandarin Classic serves entrees to its customers today.

He certainly didn't foresee it at the time, but the purchase began a family legacy 58 years in the making. Kahn's Corner Pharmacy, now at the corner of Third and Main streets, proved to be one of the major business cornerstones upon which the community of Los Altos was built.

Before purchasing his Los Altos store, Sam Kahn was a pharmacist at Ladd's Pharmacy at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. It was an exclusive pharmacy catering to the wealthy.

During springtime, the Southern Pacific railroad ran "Fruit Blossom" tours down the Peninsula for San Franciscans. Kahn, and his wife Annette, took a railroad trip to see the spring blossoms.

"My wife told me I ought to go into business for myself, and I agreed with her. We felt like moving to the country and getting away from the city," said Sam, now 87. "When the train stopped in Los Altos, it looked like such a charming place and a nice place to live with all the apricot and cherry trees. We both decided this was where we wanted to be."

The Kahns looked at Los Altos as a little country town on a railroad line. The population in 1939 was around 1,900. They looked at several other stores on the Peninsula, but came back to purchase the J and S Pharmacy. Two years after the Kahns purchased the property, the United States declared war on Japan.

"We tried to help out people as much as we possibly could," Sam said. "My wife was a nurse. She worked at the French Hospital in San Francisco, and we set up a 12-bed hospital in one of the local churches and practiced emergency drills for the war effort. The Boy Scouts helped set up and put away the equipment we needed for an emergency hospital."

Kahn's Corner Pharmacy started to carry all kinds of general merchandise. The store sold liquor, all kinds of sundries, and it had a soda fountain where people would gather for lunch and snacks during the day.

"There was no relief pharmacist during that time and Sunday was the only day I was able to get away," Sam said. "The toughest thing about having a store is the hours you have to put in to make a success of the business. You have to do everything. One thing that sticks in my memory is - on our big night off, we went to a show in Palo Alto and ate dinner at L'Omelette."

Mel Kahn, 55, one of Sam's two sons, (Bruce, the other son, did not enter the family business) worked at the old store as a stockboy while he attended Hillview and Covington schools, and Los Altos High School. He went to University of Pacific in Stockton to get his pharmaceutical degree and took his state boards before he returned to the store in 1965.

Right after college, Mel married his wife, Mady. She graduated from Palo Alto High School and attended University of Arizona, but transferred to University of Pacific to be closer to Mel. They have two sons, Matthew, 27, and Brandon, 24.

In 1955, Sam Kahn bought property at Third and Main streets and built the store where it is today. The mural on the side of the pharmacy on Third Street depicts Sam and his son, Mel, hanging a picture of the original store.

Mel said his dad was a great salesman. "He carried so many different products and he loved to sell. On the day of the move he had the cash register on a wagon and he was still ringing up sales as he came down the street."

Sam Kahn was also one of the original members of the Los Altos Village Association.

Several years ago, Mel purchased the building and the store from his father while Sam eased into retirement, spending only one or two days a week in the store.

"When I bought a computer to keep patient records and become more efficient in filling prescriptions," Mel recalled, "my father looked at the monitor and said, 'I think it's time to retire.'"

"He still lives in Los Altos and is happy in retirement."

The Kahns got rid of the marble soda fountain when it broke into pieces during the two-block move in the 1950s. The liquor case was removed and in recent years, the camera and film section was discarded. The store added specialty services such as diabetic supplies and testing equipment, supports and braces and a diversified ostomy department.

In 1972, Mel, and two other partners started Convalescent Pharmaceutical Services (CPS). The company specialized in advanced infusion systems. It supplied drugs and pharmaceutical consulting services to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and penal institutions throughout Northern California.

The company developed with Alta Bates Hospital in Oakland, Health Dimensions in San Jose and CPS put the infusion center at the Sunnyvale Medical Clinic. Two years ago, after the company merged with Hillhaven Corporation, Mel left the company to become more involved with the family store.

"This is a family business and it reached a point where no family member was in the business," Mel said. "My father retired and I was seldom in the store. Mady became involved at an important time when she showed real interest in upgrading and buying for the gift department. She started to spend more time in the store by including a travel section and expanded the front end of the store.

"We started to specialize in the compounding business, and we now have a larger customer base. Our prescription volume is higher now than it ever was and when we look at the front end, that business is also up. I think we are successful because of our long-term employees. They are the key since I was not able to be here all the time," Mel said.

Kahn's Corner Pharmacy employs 12 different specialists. Richard Pitcher, pharmacist, has worked more than 20 years behind the drug counter. Others longtime employees are Becky Bell, pharmacist 12 years, Jan Frolich, administration, 16 years, and Terry Mansfield, medical technician, eight years.

Mel is on the board of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists and is involved in a range of community activities. He is a past president of Los Altos Village Association and chairman of a Parking 2000 committee that offers recommendations for solutions to the downtown parking problem. He has coached Little League baseball teams and the store currently sponsors a team.

As for the future, "I have concerns how long an independent pharmacy like ours can survive with the insurance companies and health maintenance organizations dictating access to the patients we serve," Mel said, "but our sales are better than they have ever been. ... You have to modify to accept changing opportunities.

"We are a unique store in a unique community. Los Altos is a community where everyone tries to support each other, and the town's salvation," Mel said.