Fancy a sleepover in the world’s last Blockbuster?
Yes, you heard us right. The only surviving branch of the video rental store is now available to book on Airbnb
THE SLEEPY MOUNTAIN town of Bend, Oregon (population: 76,693) is fairly unremarkable, by most measures: it boasts a ski resort, the headquarters of the Les Schwab tyre company — and a strange slice of movie history. For it is home to the world’s last operating branch of Blockbuster Video. Netflix may have won the war, but Blockbuster Bend still battles on. And now, improbably, you can stay overnight in it.
“Y’know, we’re fighters here in Oregon,” chuckles Sandi Harding, the general manager of the store for the last 16 years. “We don’t go down without a good fight.” Opened as an independent video store by Ken and Debbie Tisher in 1991, it became a Blockbuster franchise in 2000; when Blockbuster Corporate went bankrupt in 2010, a handful of franchises were able to keep going. “They offered all of us franchise owners licensing agreements,” Harding explains. “We could continue operating under the name as long as we stay profitable.” The last-but-one store, in Australia, closed in 2019, leaving Bend the final relic of a near-forgotten era.
To stay relevant and in the headlines, Harding and her team occasionally cook up some stunts. Such as their latest: temporarily opening up their store for sleepovers on Airbnb. “We’re going to turn the centre of the store into a living room,” she says. “It’s going to have a bed and beanbag chairs, a big TV, DVD player — and a VHS player.”
The store has also poked fun at the streaming monolith that now dominates; earlier this year, they ran a giant billboard which read: “Netflix has an algorithm. We have a callgorithm”, with a phone number listed. “You could call from anywhere in the world,” says Harding. “And we’ll give you a personal movie recommendation. The billboard had a picture of one of my employees, on a corded phone.”
The novelty of being the last Blockbuster brings curious tourists in from all over the world (“I think we’re on our 18th guestbook,” Harding says), keen for a hit of ’90s nostalgia and the tactile pleasure of physical media. But the real secret to Blockbuster Bend’s unlikely longevity is the human touch. “I have Netflix at home, too. I know how convenient it is,” Harding says. “But you miss that personal interaction. Every single person that walks in the door here has a smile on their face. It’s such a happy place.” She laughs. “I mean, except for the late fees.”