When I went back to my hometown in eastern Washington last week, we passed through a town of about 5000 people–and had an honest to goodness video store. This stunned me because in my current town of Tacoma (about 200 thousand people) we only have one video store, about two miles away from me. . How close are you to a video store, and do you have any idea how it stays in business?
I am as surprised video stores still exist as I am that the printed Yellow Pages does.
There’s a little one a few blocks from my apartment in NYC called We Deliver Videos so I guess the delivery bit helps keep it afloat.
There’s a Jumbo Video two blocks from me. It’s one of, I believe, ten left in Canada. I imagine a good portion of their business comes from renting video games, since that section is what’s up front when you enter the store.
There are a few independent stores left in my city (Austin TX) - it’s been years since I’ve rented anything from one myself, but I think they stay in business by stocking specialty/hard-to-find stuff, which there’s a good market for here - indie, foreign, arthouse, classic, documentaries, “cult”, etc.
I know where a video store used to be.
There are quite a few Family Video stores in my city, but they also have pizza delivery (pretty good pizza, too) and I understand that they usually locate in strip malls that they also own, so they get that rental income too.
What about Redbox? Those are all over the place.
I think there’s only one left in Santa Barbara, but it happens to be less than a mile from our house. I can’t imagine it will be around much longer, but I never would have expected it to make it this long, either.
None where I live. (Tuscaloosa, AL pop. 100,000). Several Redboxes and one DVDXpress box.
There doesn’t appear to be any left in Birmingham either.
There’s a Family Video about a block from me. As Nearwildheaven mentions, they now do pizza delivery and will bring your movie with and the company itself is involved in property management. They also have a bunch of perks and offers such as always having free kids movie rentals and a free rental of an older movie with every new release rental. Rates are reasonable as well from what I remember.
I almost wonder if they haven’t been doing better recently with the fragmenting of the streaming market. Used to be that you could stream a lot more from Netflix before all the studios either jacked up their rates or else held stuff back for their own services. Frankly, it feels like it might be easier to just rent something sometimes than figure out which of the umpteen services will stream it for you.
There’s a Family Video half a mile from me - I could walk there if I weren’t terrified of being flattened by a tractor-trailer. The video store is not much different from the old Blockbuster, a zillion copies of the newest releases and several racks of older movies. There are some surprising titles, but they seldom have the surprising titles I’m looking for. 
But it’s better than nothing. I have better luck renting from the public library.
(And speaking of old fashioned, I have a brand new Yellow Pages phone directory, I put it in my car since I have only a primitive Trac Phone.
The weird thing in my area is video stores seem to being surviving better in the small towns. There are video stores still open in Albion, Brockport, Dansville, Lockport, Medina, Warsaw, Webster, and two in Batavia. But Rochester, which is bigger than all those towns combined, doesn’t have one general video store left.
There was a Korean video place less than 1 km from our house, but I think it closed down in the past year.
Not counting redbox, we live in a video store desert.
I wouldn’t really know. I haven’t noticed one in some time, but then again, I’m not sure I would notice. I can tell you there isn’t one on the route of my daily commute.
There is an empty building near our house, that was finished about 8 years ago and never occupied. It looks like it may very well have been designed to be a video store. They’ve been trying unsuccessfully to lease or sell the place since it was built.
There’s a Family Video store about a mile from my office. Never been there.
There’s one (can’t remember the name of it now) a handful of miles away from me here in Florida
If it doesn’t have to be completed dedicated, there’s also one in Middlesex.
There’s one downtown - probably a 15 minutes by bicycle. I’ve been inside once or twice. They’re basically a brick and mortar version of a Redbox - you pay a buck or so per night that you keep the film. The guy also buys/sells used books and I believe he just started doing occasional indy film screenings.
Downtown Gainesville has a thriving hipster population and I am 100% certain that is the only reason it is a viable business model.
I can’t think of a one. There used to be a 21+ porn video store on my old commute to work, about 12 miles from my house, but I’m not even sure it’s there anymore. There’s a former Blockbuster (now a Papa John’s and mattress store) and a former Hollywood Video (now a 24-7 Workout Anytime) not far from my house though.