Renting movies from video stores has been a favorite activity for a good part of my life. The recent news that the last of Blockbuster's stores will close seemed to make official the ending of the video store era.
Of course I enjoy Netflix. I watch a ton of stuff online for sure but there's something about browsing the aisles of a video store that will always seem so right.
I used to frequent the Blockbuster on Leonard, attached to the side of Ralph's grocery. The layout was different from most of them, kinda maze-like. It seemed particularly old-school to me. The building has been abandoned for a few years now. I think Ralph's is using it for storage.
...Allow me a moment to brag that when Eastown Blockbuster closed down, I snagged their copy of Revenge Of The Nerds 1 and 2 for $5! So that's a win I guess-- but I will kind of miss that place and really I'll miss a ton of different places that used to be around Grand Rapids that are no more. It's maybe a little ironic that quite a few of the smaller chains were most likely driven out of business by Blockbuster.
Some friends and I were trying to brainstorm a list of local video stores we could remember:
-Video Palace
-Video Tyme
-Video Master
-Eye On Video
-Hollywood Video
-Crazy Larry's and Believe In Music both rented video
-Meijer and Rite Aid used to have a rental section
-Magnum Opus
-My Video Shoppe
-Hypnotic Eye
-And of course Blockbuster
...I am sure the list is missing some!
As of 2013 the only video rental that I know of still around Grand Rapids is Family Video....
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| On this particular night, the Spice Girls movie "Spice World" was showing on all the monitors inside, which enjoyably heightened the time-warp vibe I now feel when I go here. |
So is Family Video the last video store open in Grand Rapids? Are there some others we didn't think of?
