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posted by mrpg on Thursday March 07 2019, @10:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the Sole-Survivor dept.

The World's Last Blockbuster Has No Plans to Close:

The second-to-last Blockbuster, a squat blue-and-yellow slab wedged next to a real estate agency in Western Australia, will stop renting videos on Thursday and shut down for good at the end of the month. Two stores in Alaska, part of the final group of Blockbuster outlets in the United States, closed in July.

That will make the Blockbuster in Bend, Ore., one of a kind: a corporate remnant, just off the highway, near a cannabis retailer and a pet cremation service.

[...] But when Sandi Harding, the general manager of Bend's Blockbuster store, heard that she would be running what is effectively the Lonesome George of video-rental chains, she posted a giddy message on Facebook: "Holy Cow it's exciting"

[...] The Bend store became a Blockbuster franchise in 2000. It has about 4,000 active accounts and signs up a few fresh ones each day, Ms. Harding said. Some of the new customers are tourists who have traveled hours out of their way to stop in.

[...] One possible explanation for the store's long life: Bend is in a region that the city's mayor, Sally Russell, describes as having "huge expanses with really small communities" that often do not have easy access to the high-speed internet necessary for content streaming.

Many residents of outlying areas stop at Blockbuster during their weekly trips to town to run errands, drawn in part by the store's seven-day rental policy, Ms. Russell said, adding that the store's last-in-the-world status could even give it a lift.

And who could ever forget Carl and Ray?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:26PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @04:26PM (#811182)

    A CNN photo of the shop showed a sign on the front reading, "Best Selection Around!" Technically that's indeed true.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:59PM (#811248)

    it's the only one around. so yeah, it's the best and worst selection at the same time.