Video Store Interview: Top Hat Video
Top Hat Video is the last video store in Utah, but sadly 2022 will be it’s last year in business. The Bountiful-based store will stop renting on December 31st, and then will sell off their collection in January. Lee and Lona Earl opened the store in 1983, originally as Adventureland Video, and they retired and sold the store in early 2020. I had the pleasure of talking with employee Cade Handley, whose mother is the current co-owner of Top Hat Video.
So, tell me the story of Top Hat Video before your family took over in 2020.
So it opened April 1st, 1983, not an April Fools joke, at this place called Five Points Mall in Bountiful, Utah. It had like three different locations over the years. At the time there wasn’t many video stores in that area. It was originally part of a franchise and actually started off as Adventureland Video. We actually have a thing, or we did have a special called Adventure Day every week where movies were like $1.50 or whatever. And then a few years into its existence, it changed to Top Hat Video, which was another just locally owned franchise. So at some point in the eighties and nineties, there were multiple Top Hat Videos in Utah, in the Davis County area. That’s some of the early history, and then it moved locations again in the late nineties, early 2000s.
Did you grow up going to this to Top Hat Video, or did you go to different video stores in the area?
Yeah, I went to Top Hat some. I mostly went to this place called 3D Video cause that was closer to my house. That was just another local video store in the area owned and operated that probably closed around like 2008 or so, but that’s where I went mostly. But I went to Top Hat some and I went to Blockbuster, you know, the “evil” Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. But I mean, there was a ton. I guess there was probably a ton everywhere, but just within 10, 15 minutes of my house at one point it was probably six or so video stores, just all nearby. From speaking to my manager, Shanna Earl, who actually lived through this, and she’s the daughter-in-law of the original owners, she’s been working at the store for 20+ years. She says when Blockbuster came in, it was just like immediately, you know, they just couldn’t compete, cause Blockbuster would get 40 copies of Titanic or whatever the big new title was. And Top Hat could only get maybe 10 or at most. And it was just that constant struggle of competing with a big corporate giant. I guess the difference though, between something like Top Hat and Blockbuster is we have 30,000+ unique titles, and I don’t even think that counts duplicates. So Blockbuster, they’ll have all the new big releases, but in terms of their back catalog, I think is was much, much smaller. They didn’t carry foreign films or documentaries really in any meaningful way. But that’s also not what makes money, like Star Wars does. So there are pros and cons to both.
Top Hat Video is considered the last video store in Utah. How long has that been the case?
There was one in St. Georges that I think closed in like 2016 or 2018 or something. I can’t even remember the name, but I know there was one there. And I think that might have been the second to last. However, there’s this place called the Tower Theater in Salt Lake City, which is like the oldest operating movie theater in Utah, and they rented videos. They weren’t like a video store, but they had videos for rent in their lobby, and they were the only other one for a while. But then they closed due to COVID in 2020 and they claimed they’re coming back, but I don’t know if it’ll ever happen.
How did you decide to buy Top Hat Video?
Well, I had been working here for a couple years and I loved it. And they announced right before COVID. They weren’t closing cause of COVID, they’re just older and they were ready to retire. And so the store was basically going to close, unless someone bought it. There’s a couple people maybe kind of interested, but nothing serious. I mean, it’s not like a money maker, it’s a money loser. You hope it’d be a money maker, and that was the goal when we went into it. So it was gonna close, and my mom’s partner is a businessman, with a bunch of different businesses and they just decided to give it a go. They kind of decided before COVID really started, but the deal was finalized after COVID had started. So yeah, it’s funny cause like for the first month or so that we reopened, we ha we couldn’t let people in the store.
Like in Los Angeles, things closed for a year and a half. Utah was a different story. It was literally only like a month and a half. But for that month and a half, I mean, it’s kind of absurd the idea of operating a video store. People couldn’t come in, so people would have to like literally go in the parking lot, call and be like, you have this movie? And we would look and find him and then bring him out to their car. So that was unique to do curbside delivery during COVID. But then after that, there was a bit of a boost maybe for a little bit, but the business never recovered. The big problem I think is that old people, to put it bluntly, learned how to use streaming.
And everyone just got so used to it, cause they had to. And yeah, it just never recovered. We tried different things to boost business but, I mean, it’s already been happening, but COVID was the final nail in the coffin of the public’s mind shift, to where it’s just, they don’t feel the need to leave the house to watch a movie. It’s affecting movie theaters too, but yeah, people just are not interested in leaving their house to watch a movie.
Despite COVID, you’ve still survived until the end of 2022. Is that thanks to loyal customers or something else?
It’s a very small town, family based community, you know. Yeah, we have plenty of regulars and there are still a lot of older people who don’t wanna mess with the streaming, or families or whatever. And I think part of it is probably due to the fact that we are the only one. There’s no competition, there hasn’t been for a while. So that probably helps for a bit. But yeah, definitely a strong sense of community, A strong sense of like, oh, this is a cool thing that we have that’s unique, a local, small town video store.
How has the reaction been from the public since you’ve announced the closing?
Definitely a big reaction. Every single local news station and paper has done a story basically at this point. And a lot of response on the social media, and it is heartening. It’s nice to see, but part of it’s also frustrating, because some people are like, we love Top Hat, it was so sad you’re closing, but they haven’t come in for five years or whatever. I mean, that’s how it goes. I get it. You don’t miss something until it’s gone. But overall it’s been nice to see and definitely an increase in business since the announcement of the closure. But still, definitely not enough to keep it going. I think people will miss it. There could be a resurgence, you know, I always figure, maybe the video store will go the way of the record store where, you know, you give it 10, 20 years and then people start to miss it and it becomes cool again. Maybe that won’t happen, but that would be cool if it happened. I think eventually people might miss it more than they do now.
And now we even have a Blockbuster TV show. We have kind of this nostalgia for video stores, but people don’t want to actually put in the work to support them.
Yeah, exactly. The idea of renting a movie and then having to return it, I guess for some people nowadays is just too much of a hassle. I know that the last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, from what I understand is that they basically just operate as a souvenir shop at this point. I know they still rent movies, but I’m sure the vast majority of their revenue is selling t-shirts. Which, you know, I get that, but we don’t have that name recognition. People don’t care the same way.
What do you think you’ll miss the most about running a video store?
Probably just being in environment that I actually enjoy, you know. Someone works at the grocery store, but they’re not actually passionate about bread, you know. It’s just a job. I love movies, it’s one of the big passions for me. So yeah, getting to talk about movies and just be surrounded by them, I’ll miss that the most probably. And I’m very close with my coworkers. I made a lot of great friends working there. A lot of regular customers, I’ll miss seeing them. And so, the people at the end of the day and the environment, that would have to be it.
Did you have any unique sections in your store?
That’s a good question. We do specialty sections, on all the front facing end caps each month. There’s probably like four or five of ’em and we just do whatever we want. I’ve done a lot of those. I’ve done directors acting in movies, best movies over three hours, best movies under 90 minutes, best biopics about writers. We’ve done a ton of these over the years. So yeah, putting those together has been a lot of fun and something I enjoy. And I think it brings everyone’s own unique flair and taste to the store.
