Harvard Students Have Grocery Options. We Refuse To Use Them.

There are many experiences that define Harvard undergraduate life: the first awkward dorm party, coming to terms with the fact that Harvard University Dining Services will be your primary source of calories for the next four years, and most surprisingly, spending what seems like a small fortune buying luxury items such as toothpaste, paper, and Advil from the Harvard Square CVS.

The relationship Harvard students have to CVS certainly isn’t healthy. But the problem isn’t corporate greed, so much as students’ unwillingness to venture beyond the most convenient option.

Tucked away on JFK Street across from the COOP, the Harvard Square CVS looms large over the lives of students. For many, it seems like the only place to buy necessities — I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve bought shampoo and other toiletries, perused its selection of over the counter painkillers after a particularly physical rugby practice, or run there for food after the dining halls close. Combined with its 24/7 hours of operation, it’s hard to not become dependent — despite the prevalent rumor that it is the most expensive CVS in the country.

I don’t blame students for believing it. As of 2023, $8.99 for a box of Cheez-Its, the same for a pack of five pens, and $6.29 for a twelve ounce bottle of shampoo all make the theory hard to ignore. After all, what group would be more willing to pay these prices than naive students at a university that can cost over $80,000 per year?

Unfortunately for students who like to propagate claims of price gouging — but fortunately for those of us who spend our dollars at CVS — one Crimson blog editor (in an admittedly less than scientific study) found this claim to be nothing more than a myth. The prices they looked at were similar to those at other CVS Pharmacies in surrounding neighborhoods and on the CVS website. We can rest easy knowing that we might have to pay too much for a box of Cheez-Its at most CVS locations in Cambridge. What a relief.

But students’ reliance on CVS seems to reveal a much deeper misperception. Many of us act like there aren’t any grocery stores in the Square.

I certainly believed this to be the case when I arrived on campus. Scrolling through Sidechat it doesn’t take long to find the suggestion that Harvard Square lacks a nearby grocery store, with CVS upcharging its patrons instead.

While oft-repeated claims of CVS’s price gouging are believable yet harmless, the notion that Harvard Square lacks an accessible grocery store is plainly false. It’s time to put these rumors to bed for good.

There are two full-sized Trader Joe’s Grocery stores close to a mile from the Harvard Square T stop. The only thing preventing students from shopping at these locations is their willingness to walk a mere 20 to 30 minutes. More damningly, there is a Wholesome Fresh, complete with a deli and a wide selection of groceries on Church Street, right in the heart of the Square. Broadway Marketplace, with similar offerings, sits just one block away from Harvard Yard too. If anything, the area around the Square suffers from an overabundance of grocery stores — Harvard students are just unwilling to take advantage of them.

The idea that the Square lacks accessible grocery options is simply not true; there are at least four nearby. And CVS’ prices don’t seem to be outliers from the local norm. The truth is that many Harvard students aren’t willing enough to go beyond the four blocks of Harvard Square with which they are comfortable.

CVS’s only sin is that of convenience.

Mac M. Mertens ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Classics and History double concentrator in Mather House.