1. Visit a doctor, ask a question, and get answers and help for your issues and or questions. Urgent care is becoming an increasingly more noticeable trend in the city, with new offices popping up all over different neighborhoods. This has trickled down to pharmacy and drugstores, and the once empty, archaic pharmacy seating sections are now trying to revamp and rebrand; setting up cleaner, nicer, and more approachable walk in care sections. Case in point, Walgreens and Duane Reade. Expect to see a lot more in this category from the super stores, further propelling them into a even higher state of convenience and tangibility for consumers. And if you want to make sure you never have to visit the urgent care section, head up to to the grocery aisle and buy yourself an apple. You know what they say……
2. Buy Designer makeup and fragrances in the Look Boutique. By now, you know that your neighborhood Duane Reade consists of much, much more then the average, typical, daily needs. Q-tips, water, some body wash; all things you can grab in a pinch, but you can also go on a makeup shopping spree and have just as much fun as you would at your local Sephora. All the brands for your lips, eyes, face, etc are lined up in colorful displays along the aisles, but with the opening and expansion of the Look Boutique, a certain elegance and look has been brought to the department, as well as dozens of new brands. But you might not know that, depending on which location you’re at, these brands can consist of high end,luxury items. A perfect example, as is for most things, is the Flagship location on 40 Wall Street. The most boasted about store, mostly due to it’s regal nature has a bit more than your average, local, Nyc Duane Reade. With that, comes a bevy of higher end items to surprise you, including an entire line of Burts Bees, and an actual library of Demeter fragrance, as well as much more. But more on that story later. For now, fill your life with Duane Reade, and a little pop of color for even the most dreary and chaotic of city days.
3. Buy quality leggings for under $10. Among the many things that one still might not know about Duane Reade just yet, its collection of tights and leggings is a cat well worth letting out of the bag. Though you might not think of it at first, the store carries not only a great collection of leg wear, but boasts a store label brand that blows any $5 Forever 21 pair of leggings out of the water. I have previouslywritten about how great these are, as well as wearing them with my chunkiest of sweaters, and leopard-y of boots. But they can function, beyond fashion, for workout, casual or layering. At these prices, you can afford to buy a different pair for each function, proving that when you get a run in your tights, or leggings, before heading to a cheaper, mass market store, run to Duane Reade instead.
4. Get your hair blown out – The lower Broadway location isn’t only regal, and gigantic, it’s functional. Situated on the bustling Wall Street, hundreds of financial geniuses can show off their smarts in the board room all day, and then head over to Duane Reade, to show off their tresses out of the office. Or, since this is a city that thrives on what you can get done in a one hour lunch span, see how much beautifying you can do between lunch and your next meeting.
5. Eat a custom made, chopped salad for lunch. The New York Times earlier this summer, started noticing something that all Manhattanites had already come to slowly learn. This is the fact that Duane Reade, the epi center of all things beauty, pharmaceutical, skin, hair, and more had expanded even further into something most New Yorkers, though done at their desk, still have to do each and every day. Eat. Most of us do not brown bag it, because if we did, then the days I didn’t, the line at Chopt, or Hale & Hearty wouldn’t be down the block. There’s Pret a manger, Metro Cafe, Cafe Europa, Chopt, Chipotle, and the list goes on and on. Usually lunch is broken down into only a few categories; salad, soup, sandwich, and the places in which we can acquire these fast meals have the same respectable categories.
But what happens when the local ‘drugstore’ becomes much much more. The ubiquitous expansion of Duane Reade throughout the recent years has brought the drugstore into the forefront of New Yorker’s needs, first with better products, makeup, then with better groceries, and now with actual lunches you can be proud to eat at your desk for ten minutes while simultaneously checking your iphone, email, and ipad.
For us, time might be on the chopping block, but luckily, Duane Reade salads now are too.
Style Island 
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