Business Spotlight: Archdale Drug

Ryan: This is a big passion for me. This is what I’ve always wanted since I was 18 years old. This is what I wanted to do, was run my own small business.

Ryan: But I also wanted to help people as much as I could.

Ryan: When I first graduated from Chapel Hill, I went to work for another Pharmacist, and he taught me everything I needed to know. In 1999, my mentor decided to sell his pharmacy, and so, therefore, I had to make a decision then; do I want to go to work for a chain drugstore, or do I want to open up my own store?

Ryan: I mean, it was just me, my wife, my 1-year old child. I was 28 years old, I had been working for five years as a Pharmacist, but I had nothing really saved up to start a business with.

Ryan: I had zero money, I had nothing to start with other than just knowledge of how to run a pharmacy.  I went around everywhere asking for money.

Ryan: I asked about every bank in the community for money. And, fortunately for me, Steve Foley with First Bank in Archdale was a customer of mine, and he said, “I think we can do something for you.”

Ryan: The first year and a half, I worked 70 hours a week. I worried every night about paying the bills.

Ryan: That one loan from First Bank to start our business changed everything. It got the ball rolling.

Ryan: I could focus on my job and doing what I do best.

Ryan: And the next thing you know, a few years down the road, we’re opening up a second location and a third location.

Ryan: We are like a family. Literally, there are some of my family members that do work for me; my mother, my father, my brother.

Jenny Hoskins: I was a customer in the pharmacy, and Brian waited on me, and it just sort of went from there.

Ryan: We had something special but I never knew it was going to evolve into our relationship and our business at the same time.

Ryan: I think the people of Archdale and the people of High Point want to support the local business, and I think that makes it important for us to support them as well.

Ryan: It would make me very proud if one of my children or all three of them came back and did something within the business.

Ryan: I had my own passion, I did my thing. It’s up to them now, to find their passion.

Ryan: If this is it, that’s great. I think every small town needs small business.

Ryan: That’s what makes the town feel like they’re alive together.