ST PAUL, Minnesota — On Monday morning, Juanita Hoeschen entered Lloyd's Pharmacy in St. Paul and gave owner Jim Stage a huge hug.
"Good to see you," Stage said.
Hoeschen responded, "Good to see you back."
Hoeschen has been a customer at this community pharmacy for more than 50 years. But it's her first time inside the new building.
"I'm so happy they're back. It's beautiful. Very, very nice," she said.
Following the murder of George Floyd last year, Lloyd's Pharmacy was looted for five hours. Arsonists burned it to the ground on May 29.
"I think all those things are forgotten and forgiven and we're moving on from those things," Stage said.
With their building destroyed, the pharmacy served its patients out of their sister store Setzer's for six weeks. Then they opened a "mini Lloyd's" just down the block from their original location on the corner of Snelling and Minnehaha Avenues in St. Paul's Midway neighborhood.
On July 26, Lloyd's Pharmacy reopened at their original site.
"It's wonderful. I mean the rubble pile that it was before. Now we say, 'Now, look at the beauty that came from the ashes,'" Stage said.
"I love everything about it. I love the people. These people are the greatest," Hoeschen said.
Lloyd's Pharmacy has been around for more than a century. It first opened in 1918 as Florian's Pharmacy. In 1949, Lloyd Jensen purchased the business and changed the name to Lloyd's Pharmacy. Ron Johnson then took over the store in 1975 and kept the name.
"I used to come here as a kid. I grew up in this neighborhood," said Stage, who went on to intern at the pharmacy.
About seven years ago, Stage bought the business.
While coming up with rebuilding plans, Stage was intentional about having it resemble the old building.
"That was the plan from the get-go was to make it look as much as we could.... like the original," said Stage, adding that some things needed to be change to be up to code.
Construction started in November and took about nine months. Stage said they received some financial help from the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, nonprofits, and through a GoFundMe campaign.
"It's really a remarkable thing that I couldn't have done by myself," Stage said.
He added, "We're just really thankful to be here. To be back home. We really feel like it's kind of a homecoming for us."
Lloyd's Pharmacy is located at 720 Snelling Avenue North in St. Paul.