Abob Teff

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and discovered I haven't been paying attention. Our local Family Video closed on October 28th. Nothing on their marquee/street sign ... just a note taped on the door thanking the community for the last 15 years.

The cashier at the grocery store informed me that several other ones in nearby towns have closed too.

Springfield is the birthplace/headquarters of Family Video ... just wondering if this is happening elsewhere.

spsimmons

We stopped at Family Video last Friday and rented Mario Party for the Switch. This is in Peoria, IL. So as of then ours was still open. I'll drive by today and double check.

Abob Teff

Most of the ones that I know have closed have been in the smaller towns surrounding Springfield, though they did close one in Springfield earlier this year.

Trying to remember where all the ones are in Peoria ... I can only think of the big one in Peoria Heights. The one on the south end (near my wife's family) closed years ago, I thought.

lwhy?

The one where I live in Lebanon, TN is still open and always busy.

spsimmons

The one in Creve Coeur (on the other side of the river from Peoria) is the one closest to my home. It is still open. We plan on going there later on tonight in fact.

Abob Teff

Mmmm ... Creve Couer = Taco Johns ... (I grew up out in the sticks west of Peoria)

Something I noticed about the ones that have closed around here ... I believe they were all rented locations. A big part of Family Video's business model is real estate and owning their locations.

spsimmons

Taco Johns! lol. yep!

I know the day is coming that Family Video is going to close. Even though I don't frequent video stores like I did when I was a kid, I will be extremely sad. My favorite place in the world when I was a kid was the video rental store. Namely Stars and Stripes video.

lwhy?

My local Family Video is closing. They sold the property to Dollar General. Tennessee is already over saturated with Dollar General stores so why not add another one.... I'm pretty upset about it. I went there today and bought spent $30 on some of their more obscure titles that are hard to find. I'll really miss wandering the aisles on my days off and looking for hidden gems that I have never seen before. There's still one local Tennessee chain video store where I live Captain Video and Tanning. I'll be going there from now on even though I'm not particularly fond of it... There is another Family Video about 40 minutes away in Murfreesboro that I may go visit occasionally.

Adam Tyner

Time to update the thread title, I guess.

lwhy?

They were the last holdout. I'm sad to see them go.

Cardsfan111

The store in my community closed last summer. I scored a ton of BDs at around $1 each. At the time, I didn't think it was part of a larger corporate decision. This location had just bought out by a Dollar General, who moved in quickly after FV turned out the lights for the last time. Another FV 30 minutes away closed a couple of years ago. I figured it was just the gradual decline of all video rental places.

In November, I was 1-2 hours from home and passed a location that had a closing sign out front. Again, I stopped in and loaded up on all kinds of good deals. A few weeks ago, I had to go to Indianapolis, so I called 2 locations that wouldn't be much out of the way and asked if they were closing. In both cases, the answer was yes. My unwatched pile is rather huge at the moment.

I thought all locations were already closed at this point. Wonder if there's a list of these remaining locations. As if I need to buy some more...

lwhy?

Family Video owns most of their stores/properties. I bet Dollar General is renting the space from them. That's what happened to my local Family Video. Dollar General really wanted a location there and paid a premium to rent the location.

Cardsfan111

The article from that link above is a little confusing since it was just released:I wonder if it actually means that store closings/liquidations will begin on the 6th (tomorrow). I have a road trip to make later in the week and might be by another location or two. The prices might not be great if it's early in the process. I found from my previous stops that some managers were willing to mark down things even more than what they were priced just to help keep things moving out the door.

lwhy?

The stores are liquidating. They are excepted to close by the end of the month.