Be Kind, Please Rewind: Oregon Blockbuster is last on Earth
The computer system must be rebooted using floppy disks that only the general manager — a solid member of Gen X — knows how to use. The dot-matrix printer broke, so employees write out membership cards by hand. And the store's business transactions are backed up on a reel-to-reel tape that can't be replaced because Radio Shack went out of business.
The store was once one of five Blockbusters owned by the same couple, Ken and Debbie Tisher, in three central Oregon towns. But by last year, the Bend franchise was the last local Blockbuster standing. "In a lot of towns, the Blockbuster was the only place that was open past nine o'clock, and a lot of them stayed open until midnight, so kids who weren't hoodlums would come here and look at movies and fall in love with movies."
Then, in 2010, Blockbuster declared bankruptcy, and by 2014, all corporate-owned stores had shuttered. That left locally owned franchises to fend for themselves, and one by one, they closed. Then, this month, she got a phone call: The world's only other Blockbuster, in Perth, Australia, would soon close its doors. A new T-shirt order went out — this time with the slogan"The Last Blockbuster on the Planet" — and the store is already getting a new wave of selfie-snapping visitors from as far away as Europe and Asia.
"I miss quite a bit being able to walk into a Blockbuster or CD store and have that social experience and see people looking at stuff and talking to people," Trovato said."It's something you don't get from the slick presentation of a music service or, you know, from the internet."Its newfound fame has been a shot in the arm, and customers stream in to buy $40 sweat shirts, $20 T-shirts and even $15 yellow-and-blue beanies hand-knit by Harding herself.
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