Video Store Interview: Broadway Video
Broadway Video is the last video store in Long Beach, California. With over 25,000 titles, it’s an indispensable media archive for the city, and has been for almost 40 years, since 1985. While the original location closed in 2007, their second location opened in 1996 and is still open today, now owned by former manager Steve Tsepelis, working with manager Phil Deubel. With decades of experience in the world of physical media, first as a record store owner and now as a video store owner, Steve is doing his best to keep Broadway Video alive, so people can keep renting movies, with better selection and cheaper prices than any streaming site. He’s even added additional revenue lines to the store, including selling vinyl, film posters, used DVDs and artwork, and even hosting yoga classes in the morning. As he explains in this interview, that’s the only way a video store can survive in 2021, not to mention in the midst of a pandemic. I am very thankful to Steve for taking the time to talk to me about how Broadway Video is doing today, and his hopes for the future.
[The following conversation has been edited for length & clarity]
How did you start at Broadway Video, and what lead you to buy the store?
Actually I was a customer of Broadway Video. The original owner was a friend of mine. I had my record store and I was the co-creator of Groove Radio, and the radio station got sold to KISS FM, who bought us out because we were taking ratings and listeners from them, cause the radio station was very popular. It was huge in LA, people that are of my age still remember it and talk about it and miss it and wish there was another one and all that, because we broke a lot of music on there. We were the last independent radio station. So that got sold, and my record store actually ended up having to close because we lost our lease and we had to move, all that.
So at that point I still had a record pool, which is, I don’t know if you know what a record pool is, but they service DJs with music. I was running it out of my house and Broadway Video was around the corner from where I live. So my friend needed a manager and he called me up. He goes, why don’t you come manage my video store? So I went over there and I said, let’s just do part-time, I’ll help you out, cause he needed a manager. And then I ended up staying there and doing that part-time and I don’t know, I kind of liked it. And then he wanted to sell it and get out of it and retire. His partner had passed away, he kept it running for a while by himself, probably another ten years after his partner passed away.
And then he sold it to the last guy that owned it, Carl, that bought it and owned it for exactly 10 years. And I kind of went with that sale. So I ran it for him, and then he wanted to retire, and they were actually gonna sell it. Somebody was gonna buy it and then the sale fell through and then they were just gonna close it. And I thought, you know, this is really sad to see this happen. So I started asking around, and I got a loan from the city of Long Beach. So I did it and everything was going great. I made a lot of changes in there and it was going up every month and, and revenue and things were going well. And then the pandemic hit and Kaboom. So October 1st was my fourth year of owning it, cause I bought it October 1st, 2017.
This was actually the second Broadway Video location, before the original location closed. Were they at all different?
They were hitting two sides of town, completely different neighborhoods, but as far as the design of the store, they were set up functionally the same, same policies, same procedures, all that, but they were very different in the sense that this store was more modern at the time, way more modern than that one. It had newer fixtures and newer design and all that. But it looked nothing like it does now. I’ve really changed it a lot. I replaced a lot of the fixtures. I painted the walls, I got new blinds, there were holes in the floor. I had all the floor repaired and polished and buffed and fixed. And then I got a sound system in there and a big screen TV. I did a lot in there.
You now have Yoga classes in the store, early in the morning before you open. What do the yoga customers think of it?
It’s an interesting question because I’m finding that the yoga people, they can’t believe they’re in a video store doing yoga, first of all. They can’t believe there’s a video store there and they really have no interest in the video store, but they come to do the yoga and they do think it’s cool to be in there. If they’re from Long Beach, a lot of them know about the video store, but they don’t necessarily come there. But then there are people, customers of mine from the video store that have come to yoga also. They think it’s very cool and they like doing yoga. So for them, it’s just like coming back to their video store. But when they come in and see everything move, they’re like, wow, because when they’re in the store, they look around and they go, where do you do yoga? And I go, everything moves, and they’re like, wow! So the transition is pretty amazing.
How has COVID impacted your regular customers?
It’s hard to answer because COVID changed everything and COVID is I think part of the reason we’re hurting right now a little bit, well, not a little bit, a lot. And I think something to bring up why video stores that are left are really struggling right now is because, we had a solid clientele, we had a lot of people that did not stream, they came to the video store or maybe they did both, but they constantly, they were regulars every week at the video store and came there for many years. But since COVID, I don’t know where they all went, but they’re not coming back. And what I think is that COVID, and us being shut down by the city and had to close, I think from us being shut down, they had to stream.
And I think since then they just start sticking with that. Even though they don’t get the selection they used to get, they’re just not coming back to the video store. Now on the other side of that, we are getting a lot of new people. I love because for one thing they’re a lot younger. They seem to be kind all college kids and young couples, young people in there probably I would say twenties and early thirties. A lot of people coming in that age group and I always wanted to get more people that group in there, but they’re the ones buying the posters and they’re the ones that they come in there and they, and they get accounts.
What do you think is bringing in younger customers?
They rent movies because I think there’s this love for nostalgia right now. Maybe it’s a fad, I don’t know, but I don’t think it is. I think they really like having that experience and like coming to a video store. Some people remember it as part of their childhood going to Blockbuster with their parents, cuz they always say that, oh, it just reminds me when I was little, I used to go to my parents, used to take me to Blockbuster and we pick up movies. But then some that are in college, maybe they don’t even remember Blockbuster or never went there and it’s a whole new experience for them. And they love it. They love the selection. They can’t believe some of the movies. We have movies they’ve been wanting to see for a long time that they couldn’t find anywhere.
So I think there’s that. They like talking to us about the movies. They like the vibe in the store and just being in there and somebody said to me yesterday, she goes, I love this. And she was saying, this reminds me of when I was little, she was one of those. And she goes, I just love the smell of the video stories. Really, I said? And she goes, yeah, you can smell the movies when you come in here. I was like, okay. I’ll let you have that smell if you want. I hope it’s not an unhealthy smell, but you know, it’s just that feeling is what she’s describing. It’s just that feeling of being in the video store, you know? So there’s a love for that.
What’s frustrating about running a video store in 2021?
I’m sure the other owners of the other video stores feel the same thing, but there are people, you know, mentioning those people that used to come there that don’t anymore. I see them when I’m at Ralph buying groceries and they’re like, Hey, how you doing? Oh man, I love your video store. I’m glad you guys are still there and oh, I hope you never close. And I like to do the polite thing of like, well, thank you. Thanks for the sentiment. But I think, how much do you love it? When were you there last? Because the thing that people have to realize is that no business can stay in business unless they have that repeat business. I love people’s passion for the store, but passion doesn’t pay the rent. You have to be part of it’s survival. You can’t come there once every six months, just because there’s this one movie that you can’t find on streaming that you really wanna see or whatever. You’ve gotta have repeat steady business, to stay in business.
Tell me about The Last Blockbuster documentary and it’s impact
We got a lot of new business in the spring when that documentary came out about Blockbuster [The Last Blockbuster]. That was a great thing for us.
I mean, I watched that and man, my head, my memory was on overload. I was like, wow. Even watching her take those computers apart and fix them and stuff, I’ve done that. I’ve done everything she was talking about. I so related to her, I really would like to meet her, talk to her. I was gonna call up there and tell her who I am and see if we could have a conversation, but yeah, I totally relate, going out and buying the candy and stuff like that.
When the Blockbuster doc came out, people watched it and they were like, people that lived around here, they were like, oh man, I missed that experience of going in there. And a lot of people came to the store and got memberships. They were like, you know what? We watched that documentary, and we realized we’ve never been here. And we had this video store in our own town and we have never supported it. And so here we are because of that documentary. We want the experience of coming here and getting movies.
We’re signing up a lot of new people, and a lot of them are becoming regulars. They are coming every week, like there’s a couple, for example, that comes every Friday night religiously and gets movies for the weekend. And they’re a young couple probably in their late twenties, and they go to the gym, then they come to the video store and get movies. But they came because of the Blockbuster documentary. But the other thing I started to say is people coming in and they’re going, you know, we’ve driven by here for seven or eight years, and we’ve never come in here, or I’ve walked by this place, I’ve never been in here and just decided to come in. So then they come in and, the thing of it is once people get in there, they love it in here. Just to have all those movies and just the vibe and everything, they really love it in there. And then they come back.
How is streaming hurting video stores?
The movie industry itself is making it harder and harder for us. Because for one thing we used to rent a ton of TV shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and Dexter. And I mean, through the years, we rented tons of TV shows, but now all the TV shows that people are into are on Netflix and they’re not releasing them on TV. So that hurts us because people are like, okay, good example recently is Squid Game. That’s theirs exclusively, and they’re not gonna release that on DVD. So everyone’s coming to the store, people come in here thinking we were gonna have it. We wanna rent Squid Game and I’m like, can’t help you guys, sorry. So that hurts us. And then because of COVID, the movie industry started doing different things, like they’re sitting on all these releases. The movie theaters were closed, so eventually Warner Brothers started with HBO Max, with Wonder Woman. Usually they release all those on DVD, but once in a while, there’s one that it comes out very late or not at all. My point is there are some product that is not being released on DVD. They’re really streamlining what they release, so that makes it harder for us too, as far as new stuff.
I’ll tell you, here’s the thing about streaming. Technology has taken us where we are now and we are so caught up in this fast moving technology. I remember when there wasn’t a cell phone. It wasn’t that long ago. And look at now what has happened with cell phones. People can’t set it down. Streaming is here to stay, it’s not going anywhere, but I think people are kind of hitting the wall with it and maybe that’s a temporary thing, but I think that they wanna break from it a little bit. It’s refreshing to them to come into a store like Broadway Video and go, wow. I can pick up the movie. I can read the back. The other thing too, when they rent the movies in the store, they get all the extras. And some people are really into that stuff. And can go to me or Phil and say, hey, so what’s new? What’s good? What do you guys recommend? I mean, people come in and say all kinds of crazy stuff. Like I have people come in and go, oh, I’m really depressed. I need to cry. Find me a movie. Okay here, try this. Or they’re like, I had a bad day. I’m angry. Give me something that that’s just angry, you know? Cause you watch movies by your mood, you know, you really do.
What do video stores need to do to survive today?
I think they can’t be just video stores without doing other things. At one time they could just be a video store, but I think they can’t anymore. And that’s why I decided to do these other things. I think that you have to diversify. You have to have other things happening there. You know, our rentals have stayed the same for like 20 years. They’re three day rentals and they’re $3.25 each. And that’s pretty cheap compared to streaming companies. That’s another thing people like, by the way, they do mention that a lot. It’s so much cheaper to come in here and get movies than it is to stream. Streaming is expensive, because you have companies like Disney, you get a membership and then you still have to pay extra to stream some of their other movies.
I want to be positive about the future. I hope we’re still there and I plan to be there, but you know, it’s a struggle. I can’t lie. It’s coming from all directions. It’s the pandemic, it’s the technology that’s changing people, and the pandemic, like I said, forced people. A big thing that has hurt not only the video stores, but stores in general. I mean, that’s why you’re seeing everybody close early and have shorter hours. Everyone’s doing everything online.
They’re streaming, they’re buying online, they’re doing everything online. And the people that weren’t doing that before the pandemic are definitely doing it now, so everyone’s doing it now. And that’s where they’re living. So just gotta get people to get off their media and come into the video store and see what it’s like to be in there.
