A Family Video store in Zion is selling its last copy of ‘Cop Dog’ and closing for good — it used to be a place to go on Saturday night
Family Video store No. 418, in the far northeast corner of Illinois, a short drive from the Wisconsin line, in the town of Zion, feels like a yard sale without end. Wikipedia will tell you that Family Video is entirely online now, but that’s not entirely true: The Illinois-based chain, which outlived Blockbuster by seven years then decided last month to close its remaining 250 locations, trudges on, and on, in pockets like Zion, where it was beloved — where it was one of the few things to do on a Saturday night. Store No. 418 is dead on its feet, twitching until every last DVD on its shelves is sold, or Feb. 5 (the absolute final day) — whichever comes first.
If you happened to drive past recently, the inside of Family Video store No. 418 was exactly as you imagined: Lonesome, striped down almost to its strip-mall walls, with barely a sound to be heard. Savannah Knuth, the assistant manager, her red hair in a bun, tattoos running down her arms, sat in silence behind the counter, which was scattered with candy and discounted cans of Rockstar energy drink. Two guys came in and browsed, but unable to settle on anything worth spending money on — most DVDs are 99 cents now — they bought only candy.
“Pretty bare,” one said to Knuth.
“Pretty bare,” she agreed. In fact, it’s so empty the change has been echoing. She grabbed a roll of coins and knocked it against the counter, and the bang sounded like a gong in the silent store.
She glanced around.
“All of this,” she said, “for lack of a better way of putting it, all of this kind of sucks.”
Store No. 418 had its bounty of regulars, its staff were close friends, and some weekends it was as if all of Zion’s 24,000 residents were stopping in and asking for the same superhero movie.
“Also, a lot of people make less than $30,000 a year around here. They don’t have a lot of money. They can’t afford a Netflix subscription, they don’t get Hulu. They are not streaming movies. A lot of older people, they don’t feel that comfortable putting a credit card online. A video store is still how they watch movies. Yeah, this makes me sad. It may sound weird but we had a genuine community. You saw the same people. Some people would come in just to browse for hours. See that over there, that mural, in the kids section, those are my (painted) handprints on that wall — the people who worked here, we made that. We put ourselves into this place.”
“Arghhhh,” she groaned to herself, then flatly: “I’ll miss this — I’ll miss browsing a video store.”
Should the retail apocalypse of 2020 continue for long into 2021, we may need to explain to the pandemic babies someday that browsing stores was once its own form of entertainment. Let us remember: Shopping, with the clear assumption that you would not be purchasing anything, just seeing what’s out there, was a vibrant culture. Certainly, as a teenager in the 1980s, mall culture itself was as alive and ubiquitous an American culture as, say, theater culture or museum culture — if not way more so. Still, if browsing qualifies as a culture, it’s a culture seemingly on the wane.
At least right now, in early 2021.
It’s a despairing narrative you glimpse in every darkened storefront in Chicago, in every GameStop stock fluctuation, in the entire malls’ worth of department stores and retailers that have scaled way back, filed for bankruptcy or simply closed entirely in the past year — JCPenney, Pier 1, J.Crew, Brooks Brothers, Neiman Marcus, GNC, Bed Bath & Beyond, Lord & Taylor. Michigan Avenue, Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, lost both the Gap and Macy’s and appears so forlorn this winter, the Malignant Mile would be more suitable.
Then there are the zombies.
Every apocalypse needs them.
Family Video store No. 418, on a nondescript stretch of Sheridan Road, is so lifeless a sign out front practically begs you to kill it already — please, take the shelving, take the racks, no questions asked, all free. Someone already bought the security system (it’ll stay installed until the store is finally closed). Someone inquired about the exit signs. “Buy this” reads a sign taped to a cabinet. “Sold” reads a sign taped to the display box where posters for new movies were once hung. A woman walked in and called out in the silent space: “Is that popcorn rack free?”
“Take it,” Knuth said.
“Really?” the woman asked.
Knuth nodded solemnly.
Family Video store No. 418 once had around 13,000 movies — it was your average neighborhood video rental store. If you wanted to rent a popular movie for the weekend, you had to be there by Friday at 5:30 p.m., or else you got last year’s popular movies. What’s left, still unloved, despite costing only 99 cents, is not for the faint of heart. The DVD cases are pale and sun-washed and the titles a constant shiver of miserable time wasters: “Invisible Mom 2,” and “Joyride 3: Roadkill,” “Wahlburgers: Season 1” and “Grey’s Anatomy: Season 5,” some basketball comedy named “Ballbuster,” and by a quirk of taste, there a lot of dog movies left — “Paws P.I.,” “Lenny the Wonder Dog,” “Abner, the Invisible Dog,” “Cop Dog,” “The Dog Who Saved Easter,” “Dog Gone,” “Dude, Where’s My Dog?”
“Those were popular back in the day,” Knuth said.
The last day to rent was Jan. 4, and the last customer to rent was a regular who rented 22 Marvel movies, treating himself to a kind of farewell marathon. Also, for the record, more than 100 rentals are still unreturned; the offenders — you know who you are — will get amnesty. Store No. 418 has done well as a zombie. The day the liquidation was announced, and for two weeks after, they were slammed with bargain hunters. One guy filled a shopping cart with so many movies that the staff had to stay for two hours after closing just to complete the transaction. (He was also not shy to admit that he would be flipping the DVDs online, for more than $1 each.)
Knuth said the store has been so popular — before and after its fate was determined — that she was surprised corporate was closing it at all. Family Video, which owns the property, took in thousands of dollars in rent each month from the businesses alongside it. Then again, video rental stores are not the future of entertainment. They’re being pragmatic. Knuth said she’ll do fine: She has a new job, and on the side, she’ll continue as a tattoo artist. But the small staff — herself, her brother Mikey, Becky and Becki — are taking the closing hard. They’re planning to have a sleepover in the store on its last night and for entertainment, Knuth will give them all matching “store 418” tattoos. A week ago, Becky was straightening up the store, tidying its remaining DVDs, and Becki, the manager, said, “Honey, you don’t have to do that anymore.”
“No,” Becky replied, “I want her to look like a lady.”
As you exit Family Video store No. 418, there’s a handwritten note taped to a poster frame that reads “Zion, it’s been a pleasure.” As I left, Knuth pulled an old Family Video gift card from a file cabinet. Take it, she said. I can’t, I said. There’s no value on it, she said, and there’s nothing to buy anyway. “It’s just nostalgia. That’s what all of this is now, for lack of a better word, nostalgia.”
