Star Tribune
The Twin Cities’ last remaining video store to close its doors
If you want to identify a villain for the demise of Video Universe, the black hat, pointy mustache and dastardly laugh belong to Netflix.
Owner Scott Prost is closing his Robbinsdale store, which he believes is the last of its kind in the state. Video Universe survived switches from Beta to VHS, VHS to DVD and DVD to Blu-ray, Blockbuster’s hegemony and Redbox, as well as Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service. It even withstood the pandemic.
But with Netflix, Apple TV+ and other streamers producing movies that are not available on physical media, Prost has decided to close the store in May.
“People would come in, asking for titles and we just didn’t have them. They’d say, ‘Do you have that new Tom Hanks movie, ‘Greyhound’? And we didn’t. We couldn’t get it,” said Prost, who cited “Coda” and “Nomadland” as sought-after titles that were available only to stream. “There were fewer and fewer new releases and fewer people coming in to get them.”
The “new release” wall attests to that. Many of its titles are not new, including “News of the World” from 2020. A “Star Trek: First Contact” poster seems to warn about the reach of Netflix with its slogan: “Resistance is futile.”
Prost will sell the contents of the store and has some titles on sale already, with all movies, posters, mementos and shelvingavailable starting March 1. He’s hoping everything goes by Memorial Day. When he announced the closing at the end of December, customers said they’re as disappointed as he is.
“It does get sad. People come in crying,” Prost said.
One of those customers is Nadia Anderson. At 22, she’s part of an age group that has embraced streaming, but she’s not a fan.
“My family has been going to Video Universe since before I was born,” said Anderson, who has difficulty streaming at her home in Nowthen because of internet issues. “They have the largest selection, and they’re so friendly. Anytime I had a question, they were on it, making sure I went away with something I’d like.”
That selection of 30,000 to 40,000 titles is what Prost said he thinks will be missed most.
“We have a lot of weird stuff, foreign stuff, classics. People would come from all over for that,” he said. “Many of them are out of print.”
John Heimbuch found that out the hard way. The cinema production student at Minneapolis College wanted David Lynch’s drama “Wild at Heart.”
“It was not available on any streaming platform, to view or to rent. I could not find it,” said Heimbuch, who said he values the store’s knowledgeable staff and unexpected treasures. “But Video Universe had it. I keep thinking about what it means to lose these things.”
So does Prost, remembering 1983, when he was hired at a competing store called Video Central. Back then, it was all about VHS tapes. They felt like an entertainment revolution.
“When it happened that movies were, for the first time, now available to be taken home and watched, it was astounding. You could watch a theatrical movie and not be at the mercy of the networks,” said Prost, who was hired as Video Universe’s manager in 1986 and later became the owner.
As he watched other “old school video stores” close, Prost contemplated what it means to be part of the end of an era. According to a research company survey, U.S. video and game stores declined nearly 16% last year, and there are only 667 left.
He will miss getting to know fellow movie fans.
“People would be at the ‘new release’ wall, talking about sports, while their kids were running around and picking movies,” said Prost, whose most-rented titles include “Fargo,” “Grease” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” “You get to have ongoing relationships with customers. You see their kids growing up.”
One of those kids is Anderson, who often visited the store with her mom: “It’s a thing in our house. We’d get coffee on the way and go to the video store.”
A customer for three decades, Dan Elliott said Video Universe also seems frozen in time, with even the carpeting unchanged.
“He had Kids’ Days — Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I believe — and that was a ritual when my kids were young,” said Elliott, who guesses he rented 10,000 titles from Video Universe. “We would walk there from my house every week.”
Thinking about the work it will take to clear out the store, Prost said, “It’s really more of a video museum now. You see all the comedies from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, all in the same spot. Each movie is like a time capsule of when it was made.”
Prost said he’s glad Video Universe stuck around as long as it did, providing the biggest selection it could.
“Video had its day in the sun, I guess,” he said, helping a customer bag up John Wayne DVDs for her collection. “We’ll be turning the lights off on this business, pretty much. Turning the lights out on video rental in this state.”
DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. – A truck crashing into a school bus left nine with minor injuries Wednesday morning in rural Redwood County, a statement from the Redwood County Sheriff’s office said.
The bus driver, serving the Wabasso Public School District, failed to yield when entering the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, the statement said.
Deputies received word of the crash around 8:15 a.m. and identified the bus driver as Edward Aslesen, 72, of Milroy.
The nine injured passengers on the bus were transported to local hospitals, the statement said.
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