The people who operate this pharmacy are incompetent and rude. It seems like the pharmacy is poorly managed, because it's always understaffed and never fills my prescriptions by the promised time. The people behind the counter appear frantic, disorganized, thoughtless, and frankly depressed. I blame the management for this pharmacy's pitiful state. I've met two managers, and they both were obscenely bad-mannered. Furthermore, I've overheard the people behind the counter complaining about mismanagement. read more

I'm not sure when this pharmacy started to circle the drain but here we are. The last several visits have been like something out of Dante's Inferno. Lines of people waiting around in purgatory, all being told why they can't have their medicines, no the doctor hasn't called anything in yet or yes they have but no, it's not ready. This last time: "No...oh yes, here it is. It'll be an hour at least." "I can't wait that long right now, but I can come back tonight." "Sure." "It'll be ready then, right?" "I can't say, ma'am. We can text you when it's ready though." 24 hours and no text later: "Hi, picking up..." "It's not ready, it'll be at least an hour." Purgatory, I tell you. Hell's own waiting room. Gonna try the Safeway pharmacy across the street I guess. read more

The people working in the pharmacy are always so nice and will do whatever they can to help you. I went when the computers were down and yet still they were able to help me. Dina is a great pharmacist and Farrin was so very helpful. They went above and beyond and that's why they are the best! Also Gabby is very kind as well. But again Dina and Farrin were so helpful last week I felt I had to tell people. read more

I was a customer of the Arlington Pharmacy in Kensingston until the A.P. ceased pharmacy operations and transferred its prescription information down the hill. My pharmacist at the A.P. now works part time at the CVS; he greets all his old customers by name when they come in for their meds. I've been to the CVS a few times now. On each of my visits, the CVS pharmacy department was a model of efficiency. Whenever I pay for anything, I wave my CVS loyalty card ("extracare") in front of the scanner and receive all sorts of potential discounts, a few of which I can actually use. Instead of phoning in to request a refill, I can go online and click a few buttons. (It's even possible to sign up for automatic refills.) In the same vein, I can check the status of prescription orders online. The only potential negative for me is that the CVS is not on my usual path. By contrast, the Arlington Pharmacy (now re-baptized the Arlington General Store & Post) is right in my neighborhood. On the other hand, there's lots of interesting stuff on this part of Solano: Bowl'd, Local 123 (at Flowerland), etc., etc. As a result, stopping in to visit the fine folks at CVS has not been much of a hardship. read more

Omg! My husband returned with my Meds and said Quan, the pharmacy manager has moved on! Quan, if you are reading this.... You are the ABSOLUTE BOMB! We will greatly miss you! read more

Mérite un détour, as Michelin says. This is my new favorite CVS because it's pleasantly small and almost always empty (of people), and I LOVE that. Nice staff and none (or hardly any) of those horrid self-checkout stations. Am just subtracting one star for their limited cat food selection. Meow. read more

This review is for the Pharmacy. After a good experience with CVS in other locations, this is by far my worst pharmacy experience. I've never had the prescription ready on the requested time, even when placing the automated request 24 hours prior. I arrived at the store last month to pick up, and they said they needed 15 more minutes. I returned after a 30 minute walk to be told they don't have enough pills to fill my prescription. This month I called to place the same order. After 18 minutes on hold, I asked the person to please check: 1. that they have enough of the drug in stock 2. If the prescription could be ready at my requested 12:30 time He put me on hold to check for the drug and informed me that yes they have it and yes it will be ready at 12:30. I got a return phone call at 1pm. Indicating they do not have enough of the drug to fill my prescription. I explained the previous call, and they said the technician I spoke to was correct that they infect DO have the drug, just not enough (10 pills was what I needed)....oh right, so that's my fault. Semantics. After 20 years of CVS in other places, I'm disappointed and I've taken my business to Pharmaca up the street. They filled my prescription within 2 hours and price matched CVS. They even provided a $30 gift card for bringing my prescription over from CVS. read more

What happened? This used to be such a great friendly pharmacy with the nicest and most efficient pharmacists. Now it seems to be run by bumbling fools who take 4 days to fill a refill and don't call to tell you it's ready when they said they would. grrrrr. I'm moving my prescription, just need to figure out where. read more

Ya'll need to get more assistance and have extended hours. I waited on the phone at 3:15pm for 20 minutes. No one came back so I hung up. Then went into store at 7:15pm and a line 4 deep with only one staff working. One customer left...the other had been waiting for 30 minutes....still waiting...not cool when you are sick. read more

A nice, cute pharmacy on Solano Ave. I found the staff here attentive and professional: had questions about a couple medications and my questions/concerns were adequately addressed. It is somewhat small so one might not find all the miscellaneous stuff one might expect to find at a larger CVS store. Nonetheless, I would return here for its cozy ambiance and friendly staff. read more

CVS Pharmacy - Pharmacy - Drugstores Near Me - Albany, California

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Since this is the Pharmacy, that's what I'm reviewing. They are extremely helpful and not condescending, nor do they act like they are doing you a favor and really could give a hoot about your medication problems. I'm not a huge fan of the CVS chain. I do not buy any kind of food stuffs, just the odd greeting card and cosmetic supplies in the store. The pharmacy at this location goes above and beyond to help you. read more

Went in for a Flu Shot: took forever apparently due to corporate procedures that required a lot of data entry. They billed the insurance wrong so I had to fix it. Try Pharmaca up the street for more experienced service http://www.yelp.com/biz/pharmaca-integrative-pharmacy-berkeley read more

So their website says that they sell money orders. You stand in line for 10 minutes and walk up to the counter and are told no they don't sell money orders. I guess maybe they should fix that on their website. Could it possibly be that they don't sell money orders to certain people? Who knows. Store is located on crowded Solano Avenue. They have their own parking lot but with all the bad drivers around you're probably better off going to El Cerrito Plaza, or some other store entirely.... read more

This CVS is pretty average. I'm a fan of their parking lot so that I won't have to pay for parking. I was her once for scissors and they were out or did not sell any. They only sold the special hair ones which I did not want. I would come back here for the convenience that it is on Solano and thus i always drive by if I want to go to the El Cerrito shopping center. read more

got a friendly greeting from the cashier/manager(?) when i entered. unfortunately my sought after allergy meds way overpriced here. store on the small side, former long's. buys: dorito chips (2/$1) notes: -lots of specials ala walgreens -street parking only,(if u r lucky). read more

Very bad service - they would not return the item which I had purchased from them - they asked me to go to the very same store I purchased it . Move you big butt and help your customer '!!! This was a BS read more

I have changed pharmacies over the years - mainly to go to the one closest to my residence. Never in my life has i experienced such incompetence. They have lost my prescriptions, pre-authorization several times within a few months. The wait time is also way longer than my experience with other pharmacies - at least 30 minutes. They are quite incompetent, disorganized and irresponsible. DO NOT use them. read more

They have nothing I need except facial tissue. OK, sometimes they have my toothpaste. But they don't have any products that I normally use for my face. It's a small location, but that's no excuse, because over the years they've discontinued products that I like. And customer service. Don't go there for any real help. There are only one or two employees who are at all oriented towards a pleasant demeanor and helpfulness. I've had people who are positively rude to me. For instance, I was buying a pair of clip on sunglasses and I noticed that one was broken. So I brought them up to the front counter to let the person know about it. Stonefaced. No thank you. No acknowledgment of anything. Really strange read more

On hold for 30 + minutes EVERY TIME you call them. That's the worst for any pharmacy I've used. You'll receive slightly faster service if you come there in person. read more

I love cvs but I think they should be close for the holidays like thanksgiving, Christmas, and news year day! Like everyone else. It's not far for people to work they should be with they're families!!!! read more

They used to be fairly good, but they've gone downhill and are now easily the least competent pharmacy in the bay area. They techs continually misspell people's names causing delays because insurance won't go through, among other issues, and they're constantly messing up refills. Picking up prescriptions shouldn't take multiple visits. Avoid this placd at all costs. read more

I switched to this pharmacy after the Arlington Pharmacy closed. There were at least five employees, extremely quick service, and virtually no problems. My doctor would fax in a prescription and I would get a call saying it was filled before I arrived to pick it up. Driving across town to pick up medicine was virtually effortless and stress free. Those days are long gone. Now there are huge (and sloooow) lines, rarely no more than two employees, long wait times to get prescriptions filled, and oh so many mistakes. Prescriptions I have been getting for years would suddenly be rejected by my insurance, and it would take quite some time for the CVS staff to realize they misspelled a name or made some other error. I know it's not just happening to me because I'm usually in line behind many frustrated patrons who are angry about similar issues. There are days when the employees are barking at each other, too. It's slow, stressful, and really terrible to have to go there, especially with a sick child. I miss my old pharmacy. CVS makes me cranky. read more

if I have filled 10 prescriptions in the past there for my family, I would say all 10 of them either weren't filled, or filled Incorrectly or gotten lost in the pile. the two stars was left for easy parking and the pharmacist was apologetic each time. but clearly, I don't want to waste 30-45 min each time on this pharmacy anymore and will be going to Walgreens.... they are probably understaffed. read more

Stores sucks, Management sucks even more, workers dont seem happy, they look like they hate working here. I hate shopping here. Long lines understaffed and when i asked for the manager on a saturday, i was told she NEVER works weekends, wtf kind of manager is that? How are you suppose to see how efficient a store runs if your not there at peek hours in the busiest days of the week? read more

My husband had 3 new prescriptions filled here, so we asked for a counsel. The pharmacist proceeded to read the prescription label to us...um, I can read. No help! After leaving and googling the medications it turns out one makes you super sensitive to sunlight, important information I would have expected during counsel! read more

Excellent service! I meet cashier Viktoria she help me a lot to find everything what I'm looking for, she's very friendly and helpful. Thank you Viktoria. read more

I wouldn't normally review a CVS but I've been a few times over the last week and have been impressed with the staff on each occasion. Very helpful and friendly, always quick to ask you if you need help. read more

After Quan left as pharmacist manager, it all went downhill fast! Was there last week, waiting on a prescription that I was told was ready and was told to wait an hour! I came back in two hours and was told it still wasn't ready. This was an antibiotic medicine that I was supposed to take immediately. It was finally ready 4 hours later, after I witness the pharmacist, a woman, have a complete meltdown and started commenting loudly enough for all to hear, a patient's name, her prescription medicine, and how she was overtaking it and what the pharmacist thought of the patient! Not only was this illegal, breaking HIPPA, unprofessional and inappropriate, it was enough so several of us left the line. Don't go there is the pharmacist, Karen, is there ! read more

I Tried Sal's after getting repeatedly disappointed with problems (not) picking up my drugs at CVS -Solano Av. when promised. They even could not put the $ into making the front door operate smoothly, per the manager then! I Moved My business to Sal's...what a DELIGHT! A smart, experienced and cooperative Family Pharmacist where they put themselves on a "preferred" list of druggists with my insurance company, so they charge much less than CVS. They are polite, respectful, accurate. I have waited almost a year to get around to making this Yelp. read more

A decent spot to pick up drugs and they treat my wife real well so I can't complain. :-)

I was just there to have my propane tank exchanged, and I knew I was a little annoying because I showed up 10 minutes before they closed, but the woman flat out lied to me and said that they couldn't help because they didn't have propane. Actually her exact words were, "We are almost out of propane. I cannot help you. " That is what drove me to investigate, where I discovered several full tanks of propane. They just lost a customer. read more

The service I've received here is appalling. Upon trying to get my refill here for the first time, the pharmacist led me through a goose chase of contacting my medical insurance company because my name wasn't showing up on the system. It turned out he misspelled my prescription number. Today, when I called the pharmacy to get my prescription moved to another store, I was hung up on! I am not prescribed so-called "life-or-death" medication but to act so callously towards a customer's medical matters is frankly shocking. read more

tl, dr : this place sucks. stay away The Pharmacy. part two Why isn't there a "no stars" option? In an earlier review I complained bitterly about the deterioration of my favorite little pharmacy. The once great staff who were always pleasant and ready to help had been replaced with a gang of surly, unknowledgeable part-timers who alternated between inept and confused and confused and inept. I moved most of my prescriptions to Sal's up the street. Then, sadly, Sal's went out of business. Because I didn't know which one was worse I sent half of my prescriptions to Safeway and the other half back to CVS. Safeway has been great - I guess I'll write a review. But CVS is another story. They have gotten WORSE. Now you wait in a long line. Why is the line so long, you wonder. Well, the answer is that EVERY SINGLE ORDER has a problem. They can't find it. It's not ready. It's out of stock. They can't get insurance approval (because they have wrong insurance information). So you get to the counter finally and of course your order's not ready EVEN THOUGH THEY CALLED AND SAID IT WAS. So they ask you to have a seat and they'll fill it. When you go to have a seat you see that there's a group of people in the same boat - waiting. So essentially you wait to wait, Staff has been reduced to the bare minimum. One pharmacist, one window clerk and another clerk to take in prescriptions and contact doctor offices and whatever else. Back in the good ol' days there were 6 people back there. Here's what happened today. I came in to find only one person (a gray-haired woman) in line! There were 4 staff behind the counter doing their best to ignore her. Finally a bored-looking white smock came over. The gray-haired woman gave b.w.s. her information and, of course, the prescription was nowhere to be found. This caused a lot of scrambling and back-and-forth between all of the staffers which went on for several minutes. Finally b.w.s. came back to the window and said "we have this in stock but the computer says we don't. We'll take care of it" After a moment of silence, Gray Hair said "Why don't you wait on the people behind me while you take care of this?" So the clerk called me to the window while G.H.L. took a seat in the dreaded "wait forever" zone. When my orders came up they had not filled the important one. When I asked why not, White Smock said "We have no record of a refill being requested for this. The previous week I had WATCHED the one efficient clerk left there fax the order to my doctor's office, both on paper and via computer. Now they had "no record". Another White Smock came over and faxed a new refill request to the doctor's office. As I left I saw Gray Hair sitting in the waiting area looking bored and frustrated. My guess was they'd forgotten all about her. This place has gone to hell in a handcart. They have no idea what to do and no idea how to do it. What the hell, CVS? Who do you think you are, Congress?? SAFEWAY PHARMACY IS A MUCH BETTER CHOICE. read more

I'd like to leave a review for this store as today as I witnessed a very patient & caring young man (a CVS employee) go above and beyond for an elderly gentleman who was shopping in the store. This young man repeatedly and carefully explained to the elderly gentlemen the cost of several purchase options for an over-the-counter medicine. The elderly gentleman was hard of hearing, so the CVS employee explained many times very kindly without becoming frustrated. He was admirably patient and clear, and was not at all condescending to the elderly gentleman. The CVS employee said, "Sir", throughout the conversation and laughed kindly when the elderly gentleman laughed in the same way. When the employee realized the check-out line was being held up while he spoke with the elderly gentleman, the employee called another co-worker to handle the register for a brief time, so he could take the elderly gentleman aside and speak with him further. When the elderly man was ready to check out the young man ushered him to the front of the line, excusing politely with the other customers, and returned to the check-out register after the elderly gentleman had left the store. The young man watched carefully as the elderly man left the store, as he used a cane to help him walk. The young man saw the elderly gentleman carefully out the door. I was waiting in line and the young man checked me out, and I mentioned how lovely and meaningful his actions were. read more

I've been on hold for 33 minutes now with no check-in. Trying to save myself the hour wait time in person for when they mess up my prescription in person again read more

The pharmacy has recently been re-staffed and the wait time is ridiculously long. Furthermore it took them three extra days to fill a prescription. They promised they'd call me when it came in but they never did call. When I called them I waited on the phone for over 20 minutes and I was cut off twice. I'm going to change to a different pharmacy because I don't like being treated like this. read more

Great service - sometimes there is a line but the pharmacy is well staffed and efficient.

The pharmacy at this CVS is one of the worst I have ever seen. I talked with them in the morning and they told me the prescription that had been sent in by the MD had been written wrong. When I came by later in the day, they said they had never received a fax from the MD at all. Others standing in line agreed; someone else was in a fight with them about her prescription. The lines are always wrong; there is a box with the faxes of the day that they go through one by one looking for something, which is to say, they have not dealt with them nor started to fill them. If you call, you can literally be on hold for hours, or hang up and call again and still be on hold for hours. I found calling 15 minutes before they close is the best time to get through. I know the pharmacies at other CVS stores are not like this one, so go to one of the others and save yourself the frustration. read more

Will be looking for another pharmacy...Last four visits have been consistently poor. For example, I went by the afternoon after visiting the doctor that morning. Asked if they had to received the prescription. Honest to God, the pharmacy assistant pulled a stack of faxes off the machine that must have been half an inch high. Probably at least 50 pages. Then she said, "Whoops! Ran out of paper!" and stuck a large stack of fresh paper in. The machine churned out sheets like crazy while she looked for my Rx. Found it in the printed stack, but boy, I felt sorry for all the customers and frankly the staff that were so dreadfully behind. While I was waiting, the pharmacist had a very angry customer on the phone that she had to advise to go somewhere else, because the medicine had not been included in the previous day's order and so would take at least another day to fill. A dozen frustrated people were milling about. read more