A burger place in downtown London, Ont., is now satisfying a craving for physical media by changing its identity to a video rental and sales shop.
Dan Summerhayes has been flipping burgers at House Craft Burgers, Beer and Video on Richmond Row for the last two years. He mentioned that the store has always had a nostalgic vibe, featuring some shelves filled with VHS tapes and movie posters decorating the walls.
After facing challenges in keeping customers seated in the restaurant, Summerhayes figured it was time for a change.
“I don’t think it’s any secret [the food industry] is really tough right now. Most of it is take-out and to-go. We have a lot of space in here,” he explained.
“I love talking about movies and just creating more community around this stuff. It was a really cool way for me to be able to be here all the time without roasting over a grill.”
WATCH | Why Half Life is serving up a taste of physical media:
Step inside this new old-school video rental shop in London, Ont.
The days of strolling into a video store and renting a film don’t have to be behind us. A burger joint on Richmond Row in London, Ont., has shifted focus to VHS tapes and DVDs. CBC’s Kendra Seguin takes a trip to Half Life Bookshop & Video on Richmond Row to check it out.
Now known as Half Life, the store offers an assortment of DVDs, VHS tapes, books, CDs, and other pop culture collectibles. The shop continues serving burgers on Friday and Saturday nights, both dine-in and via delivery apps.
Summerhayes also provides a movie rental subscription service where customers can rent as many titles from the shop’s collection of 1,200 options on Blu-Ray, 4K or DVD as they want for $20 each month.
“There’s been an uptick in recent years with physical media making a little bit of a comeback. People are kind of getting sick of spending so much money on streaming apps,” he said.
“I’ve noticed not just around here but throughout the world there seems to be a growing trend that people are going back to their DVD collections and even their VHS collections.”
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Philip Davidson is the owner of Jumbo Video Microplay, which has been open for 36 years in London, Ont. (Submitted by Donna Davidson)
Philip Davidson, who owns London’s longest-running video store Jumbo Video Microplay, shared that he’s seen more folks looking for video rentals over the last six to eight months.
“It’s hard on people to have to pay all these different streaming services just to watch one movie. Then when you start adding up all those streaming services that’s quite expensive,” Davidson said. “People are just becoming disenfranchised with streaming.”
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Summerhayes says the back of Half Life is decorated like his basement, featuring cozy furniture along with movie posters on display and shelves stacked with physical media.(Kendra Seguin/)
He’s encouraging anyone who has old home-recorded tapes from TV shows or movies they no longer need bringing them into his store so he can look through them for rare episodes or forgotten commercials.
So far he’s been digging through his parents’ old box of tapes where he found an ancient Pizza Hut ad starring Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles alongside an anti-drug ad featuring Robo Cop.
This effort aims at uploading such lost media onto You Tube which will help keep them preserved for future generations.
“This is why we have history classes in high school; it’s like seeing these nuggets from ’80s or ’90s history,” Summerhayes stated.” It explains better than anything what exactly your parents experienced growing up.” It’s truly about preserving history.”
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Step inside this new old-school video rental shop in London, Ont.
The days of strolling into a video store and renting a film don’t have to be behind us. A burger joint on Richmond Row in London, Ont., has shifted focus to VHS tapes and DVDs. CBC’s Kendra Seguin takes a trip to Half Life Bookshop & Video on Richmond Row to check it out.
Now known as Half Life, the store offers an assortment of DVDs, VHS tapes, books, CDs, and other pop culture collectibles. The shop continues serving burgers on Friday and Saturday nights, both dine-in and via delivery apps.
Summerhayes also provides a movie rental subscription service where customers can rent as many titles from the shop’s collection of 1,200 options on Blu-Ray, 4K or DVD as they want for $20 each month.
“There’s been an uptick in recent years with physical media making a little bit of a comeback. People are kind of getting sick of spending so much money on streaming apps,” he said.
“I’ve noticed not just around here but throughout the world there seems to be a growing trend that people are going back to their DVD collections and even their VHS collections.”
Searching for lost media
Summerhayes mentioned that turning the restaurant into a video rental spot isn’t purely business-driven; it’s also linked to his personal interests. “I feel a personal relationship with my childhood. I’ve gravitated right into my 40s by finding all the things I used to play with and things I used to watch when I was young,” he said. “It just makes me feel happy so I love surrounding myself with it.” He’s also using the shop as an opportunity to connect with people’s lost childhood memories from the community.Source link
