Just to be clear, I’m talking about a business that rents dvds or blurays or even VHS tapes. I’m not talking about Redboxes or public libraries. And I’m not talking about stores that sell dvds or blurays. And I’m not talking out memories of video stores that have closed.
In my area, there is one video store left: Village Mall Video in Webster, NY. It’s only open three days a week but it’s still in business. I suspect the woman who runs the store must own the building because I can’t imagine how she’s making a monthly rent payment.
There’s also Maple Avenue Videos in Victor, NY. But I’m not sure it’s still in business. It was “temporarily closed” last year due to the pandemic and it’s never re-opened.
Looking at Google Maps, there’s no traditional video rental place near me (near western suburbs of Chicago) anymore. I can only find a few Redbox kiosks, an adult video store, and a Disc Replay (which buys and sells used videos and games, but I don’t believe that they do rentals).
Just the Family Video which has closed recently. They had tried having a BBQ company takeout place in it, which seemed like a stop-gap measure before closing.
Do we have any San Francisco Bay Area Dopers who can tell us the current (or last known) status of Rasputin Records?
It is (or was?) a local-ish smallish independent chain with some stores in the Bay Area and a few in the San Joaquin Valley. They sell vinyl, but I don’t think that’s all they do. I think they deal in videos too. I don’t know if they only sell or rent as well. Their web site doesn’t mention, that I can find, if they do rentals.
And I don’t know if they’ve gone under, or been bought out, or something. The store that used to be in Modesto is now called The Mad Monk – but I don’t know if the original Rasputin store in Modesto is still operating at a different location.
Rasputin web site, but it’s not obvious when it was last updated:
Movie Madness, here in Portland, Oregon. Over 80,000 movies, Blu Ray, DVD and VHS. Hella collection of obscure, rare, and collectable videos. Movie Madness Video
In Toronto we’ve still got Bay St. Video, which is both a rental and sales place. It’s also right smack in the middle of downtown, near Yorkville, so unless you’re on public transit, it’s a nightmare to get to.
We used to have a plethora of indie stores: Queen Video (three branches), Suspect Video (two), The Film Buff (two, I think), plus a handful of others. Plus Blockbuster and Jumbo Video, the latter of which’s closest branch to me was actually really well-curated and had a terrific back catalog. I miss it all…streaming just ain’t the same.
Memphis has Black Lodge Video although they are struggling these days. I think they specialize in genre videos such as Science fiction, and locally produced movies.
