'Not just a place for healing': Pharmacist turns old Pizza Hut into 'Hometown' pharmacy

PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. (CBS 58) -- On the north side of Port Washington, you'll find a hometown pharmacy that, if you look closely, may just resemble a well-known pizza chain.

"This building is famous for being the Pizza Hut in Port Washington," explained Michael Vineburg, owner of Port Family Pharmacy. "I believe it was built sometime in the mid-60s and it had been a Pizza Hut for that long, up until about 2021."

A graduate of the Concordia University School of Pharmacy in 2016, Vineburg hit a point in his career where he felt he was ready to open his own, independent pharmacy. When he Port Washington, a community with over 12,000 people was lacking pharmaceutical options, he decided to purchase the now vacant Pizza Hut building.

"It's right on the main drag. It's right in a residential area so people can get to it easily," Vineburg said. "Coincidentally, the building next door used to be the old independent pharmacy up here. Everything seemed to align that this was the space for us."

Once the building was secured, the real work began: renovations.

"When we bought the building, it was as if they just got up and left," Vineburg recalled. "There were still cups, plates; the booze were all still here. The hot bar, the soda dispensers. The massive pizza oven was back here where all of our drugs are set up now. It was an odd little time capsule of Pizza Hut, so that all had to be taken out."

Eventually, the location was transformed into a hometown pharmacy with some nods to yesteryear including penny candies available at the cash register and an ice cream cooler, offering customers a chance to cool off and enjoy a sweet treat.

"I have a very idealized notion of how pharmacies should be," Vineburg said. "That pharmacy where, you know, you had some of your penny candies and you could go get an ice cream and it was a community place. Not just a place for healing, but also a place to build relationships and communicate with your community."

It's a concept that carries over to the medicinal side of the business.

"They (Port Washington) needed something, not just another box door to just dispense prescriptions," Vineburg explained. "They needed someone here to do that and give advice and talk about other alternatives that they might not had known about and provide other equipment or services they might not had known existed."

That type of face-to-face, hometown service is something experts in the pharmaceutical industry is lacking today.

"It is challenging for independent pharmacies to build and to maintain and to continue to grow within their communities," said Nancy Stoehr, director of admissions at Concordia University's School of Pharmacy and a former educator of Vineburg's. "I think supporting our local businesses is important in any community. Supporting our local pharmacies is going to be just as important as supporting all of those local businesses."

Just six months into his business venture, Vineburg says the community's support has been wonderful. He hopes to repay those who have trusted him and his team with top-notch service for years to come.

"The dream would be that this is like a household name in the community," Vineburg said. "Be able to make it so that people know that we're here for them and they know where to go when they need something to help them."