The people of Bend, Oregon have one quarantine entertainment option that no one else does: an open Blockbuster Video store — the world's only.
The 20-year-old store became the only store over a year ago, reports Vice News, and it's managed to keep afloat during the global pandemic. None of the store's dozen-plus employees were laid off, and they continued to receive paychecks through the multiple closings and re-openings that occurred while they figured out best safety practices for employees and customers.
For the first time ever, they turned to curbside service. Customers can call Blockbuster to request and pay for a film, and show up at the store to receive a sanitized DVD in a Ziplock bag. "We have a lot of free time and a lot of great recs (for callers)," the store noted on Instagram.
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The inside of the store is open to 10 customers at a time, with several safety measures in place. General Manager Sandi Harding said one customer noted she was grateful to browse, as she "couldn't flip through Netflix one more time."
Harding herself purchases new releases from stores like Walmart and Target, since the store's DVD distributor went out of business. During the early days of the pandemic, people were renting Outbreak and Contagion, she told Vice, but now they've turned to classics like Somewhere in Time and the Indiana Jones series.
She isn't sure if the model is sustainable, but then again, they outlasted every other Blockbuster on the planet. "We don't go down without a fight," she said. Read more at Vice News.
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