Le Drugstore was the invention of advertising guru Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, founder of France’s first advertising agency, Publicis.

The original emporium opened on the ground floor of his company’s corporate headquarters on the Champs Elysee in Paris in 1958 as a 24-hour department store with a movie theater, a soda fountain with fabulous ice creams and even a pharmacy.

Drawing shoppers by day and a chic clientele by night, the concept proved so popular that other Le Drugstores soon opened across the City of Light.

This marvelous 1970s menu was from the Le Drugstore in the Opera neighborhood of Paris and reminds us of a film poster or an album cover.

The building in the center is the Paris Opera or Le Palais Garnier, which dates back to 1875. In this Drugstore there was a DrugStaruant where you could grab a glass of champagne or a cheeseburger, which was a decidedly exotic food in Paris at the time.

Bleustein-Blanchet was a longtime admirer of America, a country that represented modernity and innovation to him. As boy of 18, speaking no English, he scraped up enough money for a scouting trip to the US and opened France’s first advertising agency when he came back to Paris.

He made repeated trips to the US to work with New York advertising agencies during the’ Mad Men’ era in the 1950s and this gave him the idea for Le Drugstore.

For all its popularity, some French purists were aghast that the American term drugstore had invaded the French language and urged Bleustein-Blanchet to change the name to Bazaar – he said the American term was good enough for him.

Le Drugstores thrived in the 50s, 60s and 70s but lost their popularity in the 80s.