While working as a pharmacy manager at a Rite Aid Pharmacy and a Walgreens from June 2017 to October 2019, Bridget Logan felt frustrated with her role related to patient care.

Logan’s job required her to make phone calls to patients to try to get them to refill their prescriptions. She said it’s easy to get into a system of having yourself glued to a computer and never speaking to patients on a personal level.

“I just felt like everything I was being asked to do went against what my patients needed. The sole purpose was to pump up prescriptions as soon as possible,” said Logan. “I didn’t feel like it was my purpose as a health-care provider.”

Frustrated with her role and with an eye on providing a personalized touch and more care with patients, Logan and her best friend and fellow pharmacist Michael Scruggs set out to open their own independent pharmacy.

The two accomplished that goal on April 21 when they opened Front Range Pharmacy in Englewood at 3401 S. Broadway — a large building in which their space is at the corner of Englewood Parkway and Acoma Street.

Front Range Pharmacy is a full-service pharmacy that offers prescriptions, immunizations, birth-control services, vaccines for international travel, medical reviews and everyday drugstore items.

“We can do everything that a Walgreens or a King Soopers can do. We just try to do it with more care with the patients and not treating the pharmacy as an errand or stop — but an interaction with your health-care provider,” said Scruggs. “That is something that is forgotten in a retail environment.”

Logan said she and Scruggs wanted to find a place with a small-business community nearby. They felt Englewood offered that, and they fell for their pharmacy’s building that offers natural lighting.

“It feels like this is a small town in a big city, and that is how I always wanted to open a pharmacy,” said Scruggs.

Despite opening in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crisis, Front Range Pharmacy said it recently crossed 100 patients. But a lot of those patients filled up on their medication just before the pandemic started to shut businesses in mid-March.

“It has been interesting opening during this. We had planned to do a lot of marketing and have a grand opening,” said Scruggs. “We would be lying if we said we weren’t disappointed — but we said we would still open.”

Emily Zadvorny, executive director of the Colorado Pharmacists Society, which provides support and services to hundreds of pharmacists, technicians and associated pharmacy professionals, said she believes independent pharmacies can respond to needs and offer services that help a local community to a greater extent than chains can.

“All pharmacists try to help their communities — but (independent pharmacies) can have flexibility in what services they want to offer to their communities,” said Zadvorny.