Barney’s Discount Drug is closing for the same reason it opened: changing times

You might say that Barney’s Discount Drug is now closing for the same reason it opened in the mid-1980s: changing times.

“We’ve had to reinvent ourselves several times,” Scott Riffel said.

This time, he said, “I don’t see a way . . . to make it work.”

The Riffel family’s first reinvention was to convert their wholesale business into something new.

Victor Riffel, better known as Barney, and his sons, Scott and Victor, stocked stores with items such as aspirin, hairspray and other sundries.

When their No. 1 client, David’s, sold to Duckwall-ALCO, the Riffels realized they needed to change course. It didn’t help that other stores such as IGA were expanding their lines but not through local wholesalers.

“Kind of overnight, we lost . . . probably 60% or 70% of our volume,” Scott Riffel said. “It was just a changing time in the ’80s.”

So, with a warehouse still full of merchandise, he and his family decided to open their own store: Barney’s Discount Drug at Douglas and Millwood in Delano.

Just over a year later, they purchased the property at 3130 W. Central where Mr. D’s IGA had been with the intention of moving Barney’s there.

Instead, Aldi arrived in Wichita and wanted the space. So the Riffels rented to the grocer and built a new store next to it at 3108 W. Central where Barney’s has been ever since.

Riffel said he and his family didn’t have a particular goal for the store.

“We wanted to just survive, I guess.”

That’s why the store is closing now.

The pharmacy within Barney’s, which the Riffels own with George Saghbene, is closing.

Without it, Riffel said, “I just can’t probably survive.”

Changes in the way prescriptions are reimbursed are forcing Saghbene to closing.

“Economically, the pharmacy is terrible,” he said. “The insurance reimbursement is horrible.”

He said he might make a nickle or twenty five cents on a prescription he sells — if anything.

“It’s really bad.”

There are other factors as well.

At 71, Saghbene said he’s “past due retirement” and would like to spend time with his nine grandchildren.

Saghbene has been in the pharmacy business since his store was in Safeway at Central and West and the Food Barn after that.

He moved to Barney’s in the early 1990s.

“They never had a pharmacy. I went in and opened one for them.”

The pharmacy’s last day in business is March 28. Prescriptions will be transferred to the Professional Pharmacy Plus at 401 N. Waco after that.

Barney’s won’t close until sometime later. Riffel said there likely will be what he called a controlled liquidation starting in April.

Riffel said the height of Barney’s business probably was around 2007. Then stores such as Sam’s and Costco opened in Wichita.

“All of those big stores pull a lot of the retail sales out of the economy.”

He said he tried to make changes through the years, such as deeply discounting tobacco and adding more vitamins and healthy food.

“That worked well with the store and the pharmacy for a while.”

In hindsight, Riffel said that with the pandemic, he probably should have embraced something like the pickup or delivery services that other stores use to enable customers not to have to shop in store. He said he thinks most retail eventually will go that way.

Riffel said volume is slipping away already and will continue to with the lack of a pharmacy, so the store won’t be able to get deliveries from big suppliers anymore.

“We’ll get cut off.”

He said his family may sell the building or lease it.

“Everything’s on the table.”

Barney Riffel died in 2015, but Scott, Victor and their sister, Dana, still work there.

Scott Riffel said they’re grateful for incredible customers, who have become friends, and employees.

He said they’d prefer not to close.

“It’s just that the numbers don’t work. It’s sad.”

This story was originally published March 10, 2025 at 2:47 PM.