Bartell Drugs

Jeeeeeeeez these angry pharmacy reviews! I am a customer of this Bella Bottega Bartells for literally 20 non consecutive years now, I grew up nearby for ten years, and moved back for three years now pretty much two blocks away.
The staff is wonderful, and I’m assuming it must be a good company to work for since quite a few of those ladies I’ve seen there for years.
The photo service, which I’ve used with a disposable camera and their online upload and pick up service, is excellent and really really cheap. Like most people (I think) I don’t have or need a photo printer, lol, but I was framing photos for a Christmas gift, and four prints were 86 cents or so including tax. Nice.
The semi recently added aisle of «Washington» type stuff is amazing. My friend loves orca whales, so I called this store on new years day to see if they had any of those Melissa and Doug giant stuffed whales left. It was on clearance for 17 $ and Amazon is like twice that at best. I asked the lady on the phone to hold their last one until I got there in an hour, and it was behind the photo counter on hold.
In this same aisle they have hawks gear, I would
Definitely
Buy those funny mesh face mask things with the different players faces on it if it was 15 dollars or so.
It’s official nfl, but I just can’t justify myself buying one LOL.
In that same aisle they had «Puget Hound» dog «beer” — plastic bottles of water with beef flavoring. I bought two for my friends dog– it was charming, the dog REALLY liked it, and hilarious. Inexpensive. Great.
As per the pharmacy, it’s excellent. I’ve never had a problem. Lately I’ve been slacking and although the phone service refill thing is convenient, quick and easy, I have been calling them or in store, request a refill when my prescriptions had run out and had refills, and I request the refill.
The whole point of the automated system is probably so they don’t get a million calls a day requesting refills, etc, (automated refill phone thing is ²⁴⁄₇ to put in a request) but I have literally NEVER EVER gotten even a whiff of attitude about it. All employees have great customer service skills. Side note, they don’t seem frantic or stressed restocking the shelves or doing go backs, which is something I noticed at particularly Ross and other retail stores. It makes me feel bad when I see hourly employees stressed the f** out and rushingand worried, none of that here.
But ok back to the pharmacy.
I feel a need to defend this store, since it’s amazing, and when I was just looking up the # for the pharmacy, I saw it gets 2.5 stars on Unilocal.
Regarding the previous reviewer (Rachel g) that mentioned «being treated like a drug addict» and «they never have enough adderall in stock»
… Well, yes, if you try to give them a prescription for high quantity adderall, or any controlled substance written for a FUTURE MONTH, at any pharmacy anywhere, it would look suspicious and your review doesn’t say that they actually said ANYTHING to you.
The pharmacy in my old town had a big problem auth people scamming them with fraudulent prescriptions for controlled substance.
That is a ridiculous accusation and whether you’re projecting or not, whether you misuse adderall or not, any pharmacy is not going to fill a future dated controlled substance prescription.
For me personally, after lots of medical issues, have been prescribed three different classes of controlled substance, over time and by doctors, and when I switched from one particular med to another within the same class, they simply politely asked me– are you still taking xxx? At the patient pharmacist question window.
If Fred Meyer fills future dated high dose adderall with no questions as Rachel g implied, I would steer clear of that.
So overall this store location goes above and beyond a 5 star review. I would recommend it over the RTC location, where the cashier guy literally left a line of three people waiting to PURCHASE items without calling another cashier.
He was helping out a woman looking for the greeting card aisle, and took a few more full minutes with her. Even if it took twenty seconds, any good employee anywhere knows you don’t walk away from a register or other area when there are ANY waiting customers without calling a backup cashier.
It was ridiculousand that other RTC location is what I’d say a 2.5 star location.
Side note– end of season clearance is amazing. Puppy dog wrapping paper for 30 cents? Yes please.
Starbucks cold coffee drinks are especially nicely priced even with a Starbucks next door, even with a qfc next door.
Their prices are good, they’re well stocked, clean store, most importantly good customer service and also at least a little local «Washington’s own» compared to like walgreens or whatever.

This pharmacy is awful! It’s even painful to just talk to them on the phone. They mumble and sound like they’re holding the phone with their shoulder and then yell when you can’t hear them. They take FOREVER to check you out when you show up to get your refill. And forget about the drive through. You’ll never get service, and if you do its just awkward and long. Just awful service overall. Won’t be returning.

The photo service was pretty good. Jade, she’s one of the people up front working on the days I went in this week to print photos for XMAS gifts, she’s rad and I hope they take care of her.
Observations while waiting for the photos to print,
The magazine wall creeps me out with the wide selection of LIFE® special issues, like Dean, Presley, Vietnam, maybe even Arnold Palmer. also Oprah® next to a massive lion who appears as gentle as Aslan.
Then I had to pee, the restrooms are locked until someone opens it for you. I understand that some people like to steal eyeliner, I don’t. There were three people waiting in line at each check stand, I worried all of them had to pee, too. Fortunately, none did. So it was just me who had to pee.
The 5×7 photos were on sale, half off, so I came back later to print more and also didn’t drink any fluids for one hour before arrival.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit today. Those helping my mother and I were extremely helpful and polite. One of the associates helped me in deciding on the brand of natural lip balm to use, and another searched high and low with me to find seasonal truffles. They have practically everything under the sun, and I love love love it.

So, I’ve finally gotten smart and left Bartell Drugs for our pharmacy. The final straw was Thursday/​Friday before we left.
Thursday I had my physical and they called in my updated prescriptions. I went in mid-​day Thursday with my script and asked to have JUST ONE refilled for our trip. She took down my name, phone number, script information and birthdate. I specified that I needed to have it filled before Friday morning as we were leaving town and I needed my migraine medication with me.
No call on Thursday (nothing unusual — their phone recording telling me my prescription is ready is inconsistent at best).
So on the way out of town Friday morning, Russ drops me off at Bartells and goes across the street to get coffee. Bartell’s can’t find my prescription.
Oh wait, it just got faxed in overnight (Thursday).
Oh wait, the doctor called it in to the wrong store (which is odd because the doctor verified the store, location and phone number during my physical). We’lI fix it and fill it right away.
15 minutes later, I get my prescription and I ask the pharmacist why they didn’t at least CALL me to let me know that they were having issues? I left my information and let them know I needed it before we left town. Not even a phone call to let me know they hadn’t received the script from the doctor’s office.
The pharmacist was pretty much unconcerned that they didn’t fill my script on time. If this had been the first time I’d had issues with Bartell’s it would be different. But there is an issue of some kind EVERY TIME I refill a prescription with them. EVERY TIME.
I’ve switched to QFC Pharmacy across the street. I’m done. i gave one star because there aren’t negative stars. I don’t know how they stay in business.

I’ve never been a huge fan of this store. I normally choose to go to the Bella Botega one instead. Unfortunately, when calling the pharmacy today at Bella Botega, I was connected to the RTC one. The Pharmacist or Pharm Tech or whatever they were wasn’t as kind as they could have been, to say the least. She took an extremely angry tone with me the entire conversation. Then proceeded to ask me if I knew which store I was talking to, and responded in a tone of a word that I will not use on this website… And continued to try to tell me that it was RTC and not Bella Botega, which I told her I understood that. She continued until I hung up on her. The reason the Bella Botega number rang to them was because Bella Botega’s phones were down.
I can understand if I was being rude to her to act that way, but I was just simply trying to get help.

**Update 2/​10/​14**
I am still a huge fan of this store, but my opinion of the pharmacy has totally tanked — so much so that it pains me to write this, but although I still give the store 5 stars, I’d rank the pharmacy at 1 – 2 stars. If that.
As mentioned in my initial post, I don’t often use the pharmacy services here. But hubby does. Regularly. And I am often tasked with picking up his meds. And the experience rarely is quick or efficient. And the other day, it was downright infuriating, so much so that even hubby admitted, he reached his breaking point and will, like the rest of us, transfer his prescriptions to Target. Here’s what happened: we got the automated phone call, notifying us that his prescription was ready for pick up. (I love that feature, right? One would think, wow, this is efficient, right? But Noooooooo, there’s where the efficiency ends). He goes to the drive-​through window. It opens at 10am and he’s there at 11am, 10 minutes after I got the phone call at home. And he’s first in line. And he waits. And waits. And picks up the phone to call inside but it rings and rings and no one answers. And he rings the buzzer and no one responds. An employee sees him knocking on the glass and hurriedly walks away. The pharmacist inside has his back to the drive-​up window as he helps the people in line in the store — people who came to the counter after my hubby was already there for 10 minutes. Hubby waves his arms in the window. The customers in line at the counter see him but no one says anything to the pharmacist who is working the counter. I know, it’s like a scene out of a sit-​com. Except hubby was not laughing. He was furious in a way I’d never seen him. Two cars pulled up in the drive-​through behind him, also waiting, watching this mad man (my hubby) wave his arms and ring the bell and wait for service that never came. He waited 20 minutes before coming home.
He was angrier than I’d ever seen him. I asked why he didn’t go in the store when no one helped him at the drive-​thru, and he said he was in no condition to talk to any Bartell’s employee, he was fuming so. He said it was lucky he didn’t have a heart condition, waiting to pick up his heart meds; he’d have died in line and no one would notice. I went back at 5pm to get his meds and went in the store. I waited 10 minutes in the line before being helped, and I told the pharmacist what happened. He simply said he was working alone that morning and couldn’t work the drive-​thru window as well as the counter. I asked, couldn’t you have at least put up a sign saying as much instead of leaving customers out there for over 20 minutes, just waiting, when you are supposed to be open and servicing this window? No response except for a weak «I’m sorry».
Needless to say, this experienced finally convinced hubby to transfer his prescriptions to Target whose hours are longer and who are WAY more efficient. It’s further away from our home, but worth it. This was SUCH a horrid experience.

We checked in at the closing time for flu shot and thanks to the awesome staff at the pharmacy for taking us in. Definitely coming back.

I’m upgrading my review to 4 stars… seems like they are doing well with items in Stock and they still accept my insurance with great prices. Only drawback is somewhat limited hours on weekends and they don’t open early enough. Great Staff too and very friendly.

Location great. Pharmacy is a joke. They can’t seem to get it right. Tried to transfer a PERSCRIPTION from the crossroads location to Redmond. Sounds like an easy plan, but not with this group. A pharmacist by the name of Sheri was rude beyond rude. Stick with any other BARTELLS not these guys.

I am never going back to this place.
I went to the pharmacy and the manager or whatever she was behind the counter announced to everyone what I was in line to get and what I had. I’ve never dealt with someone so rude and blatantly unaware of what she was doing. Not only was it embarrassing because the line was long and there were people around… but I was embarrassed for her because she was obviously incompetent and I don’t want someone irresponsible handling important prescriptions.
This was a few years back… I will never come here for anything important or for candy for the movie theater.

The worst pharmacy ever. Consistently lose rx faxes, always a 1 – 2 hour wait, pricing wrong. To add insult, they have the highest prescription prices too. Save your sanity, money and time and go to rite aid or Fred Meyer.

I have been going to this Bartells for nearly 10 years, and somehow the service has gotten worse. I don’t intend on going back because Rite-​Aid is a much more friendly and helpful place to pick up my prescription.
I take Adderall for my ADHD and the good pharmacists at Bartells never fail to make me feel like a drug addict for trying to fill my prescription. As they are a controlled substance, the prescription comes three months at a time, one month each, and they are dated with «Do not refill before (April, May, June, etc.) 1^st». I mistakenly brought in the wrong month once and the pharmacist treated me like garbage and was reluctant to believe me that I had the correct month in my car, or that I wasn’t trying to scam them for access to drugs. Absolutely understand the need for caution, as it is a substance that people abuse, but don’t default to «anyone on this medication doesn’t need it and is only using it recreationally». Rude.
Not that their attitudes are an issue, since they never have enough Adderall in stock for me to even fill my prescription completely. It’s been months of this. You’re located next to a hospital, please figure it out.
Or, don’t. I’ll be going to Rite-​Aid from now on.

I’ve been to Bartell’s all over the city. I’m writing a review here because our brief trip there to find eye drops blossomed into a fun-​filled trip.
The help was solicitous. And they had chick-​o-​stick and Russell Stover candy, neither of which we’ve seen in grocery stores here.

Good variety, nice staff. Good pharmacy service. And I love the selection of make up and nail care they have.

They asked me to run over to my Dr.‘s office because something wasn’t on the prescription. I am sick and said no. Then they said they weren’t sure that they would be able to call my Dr. and fill the prescription in three hours before they closed.
Rite-​aid will fill in 15 min. Wow! or a $ 5 gift card.
Also, they showed preferential treatment at time of pick-​up. I came to pick up medication and the clerk was talking weekend plans with a regular for about five minutes. (She said goodbye with first names) Then she went over to the car that just drove up while I was waiting. The next clerk that came to help took the woman behind me because she had been the clerk that helped her at drop-​off. She didn’t recognize me because I had been waiting over two hours. REAlly! Thankfully, I have had better service at other locations. I guess they stay in business because of the location. They certainly don’t put themselves out to be helpful or friendly unless they recognize you or know you.

The only problem I have with this store is the customer service and efficiency of their Pharmacy.
For instance, the night before, I call in the automated RX refill line. It’s about 7pm. The automated message tells me that my RX will be ready to be picked up at 2:15pm the following day. I thought, «wow, that’s awfully late». But it was ok, I planned on picking it up after that time. I arrived at 2:45pm and the RX wasn’t ready. They haven’t even filled it yet. Why do they need 5 hours to fill a RX. Just 1 RX. That’s the most recent experience. Other experiences are similar. I have my doctor call in a RX after a dr. appointment. I go to the pharmacy within an hour, and they claim to have not received the order. Then they find it. Then tell me it will be 30 – 45 minutes.
I’m fed up and will no longer fill my prescriptions at this pharmacy. Never have I had such a problem with a Bartell Drugs pharmacy.
RiteAid guarantees 15 minutes or a free $ 5 store gift card.
So far, they haven’t let me down.
Hope this might help prevent some people some heartache.

Don’t go there for prescriptions!
Since the first time I asked my doctor to sent my prescriptions to this Pharmacy I had problems.
They NEVER «find» the fax and claim the doctor have the wrong fax number. The problem is that every time I call them, they fax it again (to the same number) and then they finally «find» it.
Not only that, they always make me wait like 30 – 45 minutes. For what!!! To drop 4 capsules into a small orange plastic tube!!! WTF!!!
I’ve changed to Fred Meyer’s Pharmacy. Let’s hope they can find a simple fax.

Yup following on from my last review, you guessed it. Drive up drugs.

This place is killer. For a drugstore anyway. Because I’m such a stubborn jackass about going to see my awesome doctor, I got bronchitis and had to go get some prescription cough medicine.
They pharmacy lady was really helpful and not the least put out when I asked her to find me some over-​the-​counter items in addition to my cough medicine. Generally speaking, all the employees are better than average and don’t seem to be headed for the door.
Besides the drugs I like the fact that the aisles are low enough that you can see over them. They are about chest-​high for me. It makes it so much easier to find the outstanding candy aisle.
Also, they have a unexpectedly large supply of grocery items, including a favorite of one of my friends… Sacramento Tomato Juice. Apparently he’d been looking for years to find it and there it is.
Not only that, but this one is located right next to the best grocery store in Redmond, Larry’s, so it’s the one-​stop shopping of Fred Meyer, only it doesn’t suck.