Welcome.    I am your host, Tara Jabari.   

 A few months ago, I was able to speak with Sandy Harding, the manager of the last blockbuster in the entire world located in bend Oregon. We talked about the history of this store, the documentary called the last blockbuster, which is now on Netflix and recalled memories and nostalgia that blockbuster brings to people, including my own memories and personal love of the store. 

Please enjoy this one-on-one phone call that I was able to make with Ms. Harding. 

  And please excuse my fan girling throughout

   Hi Tara. Hi Sandy. Thank you so much for speaking with me. 

 I feel like I'm talking to someone. Super famous. So thank, I feel like they're, they're not going to answer back. It's blockbuster. They're going to be so busy, but I'll try it.

Uh, and the co-producers were like, yeah, yeah, that would be interesting cuz we just did the Avalon Theater, which is a hundred years old next year. Wow. And they went into non-profit sector to kind of survive because they've survived the Great depression. Two World Wars, um, all sorts of things and.

And then you have the streaming. Yeah. You know, war if you will, uh, or competition and, and then covid and C and they had to reinvent themselves so much.  and I was like, You know, blockbuster. There's one more left in the entire world, and for years I've been wanting to go to Oregon.

I literally wanna just go  to go see you guys in Ben and Rent. I know what you did last summer, and then just go outside and put it in the slot. Like the slot has to be, it's, it's ceremonial for me. I was like, oh my God, I'm so excited. Do you guys have, I know what you did last.

We do. Of course we do. Um, I think we might even still, I have, I still know what you did last summer, , I remember that movie Looking One brand. But, um, it's so funny and, and Ben is a beautiful place, by the way. Um, it's just absolutely gorgeous here. But, um, but yeah, you know, our store still looks exactly the same.

Um, it looks the same as it did when we opened it. You know, 30 years ago as a Pacific video and then we franchised a blockbuster. Mm-hmm. . And so we still have the popcorn ceilings, we still have the, you know, from like a countertops and the, you know, the, we have Papa Murphy's next door, and I don't know if you guys know what that is.

I could take a big pizza. Okay. And so every once in a while you'll come in and you'll smell the pizza from next door. Um, and of course the nasty old popcorn smell that, you know, all video stores have. But it's, which I never understand, cuz we don't really pop popcorn in the store, but you still have.

Funky smell when you walk in sometimes. So anyway, so when you started working in 2004, was it a blockbuster? Yeah, it was. Okay. So, um, They opened in 1990  They opened the first Pacific video and then, um, in 2000 is when they became Blockbuster. So it was 10 years later. And the  whole reason behind that was because Blockbuster moved into Bend.

And as we all know, blockbuster was famous for, you know, running out the mom and Pops and closing up shop. And we had three very, um, successful Pacific video stores here in town. And we did really well with them, or I should say they did. Wasn't here yet. Um, and so Ken approached Blockbuster and was like, look, you know, what can we do to kind of get you guys to go away and leave us alone because we do really well business.

So we either wanna co, you know, exist or have you guys not be here and run us out. And they said, well, franchise. And so that's what he did. So he franchised the three existing stores, um, or the two existing stores, sorry.  And the third one was like within a block of the new,  corporate blockbuster store.

And so we just closed that one and took over the corporate store that was there. And then we opened up another one in Redmond, which is about 15 minutes north of Bend. And then when I came in oh four was when they opened up the fourth blockbuster here in Bend, and I opened that location and then six months later moved here to this store in May of oh five.

And I've been here at this location ever since. So,  You know, and at that point we had five,  existing stores and then we moved one of them to mad, which is another, you know, probably about 40 minutes north of here. Mm-hmm. . Cause, there was a Hollywood video there and the Hollywood closed and the owner of the building,  reached out, said, Hey, you know, the Hollywood here was very successful and it was, it was one of the top performing Hollywoods that they had.

And, and they were like, you know, we've got this store here. It's already got shelves and everything in. A blockbuster there. And so at the time we were doing really well, but we had four stores in Ben. And so we were like, you know, maybe we should just move one of these out there. And so that's what we did.

We moved stores. We actually moved it and opened it within two days. Wow. It was incredibly chaotic and, and a lot of fun, but at that point we had. Remodeled this location and done a few other things too. So we kind of had a little bit of an idea of what, how to do it, and I was really proud of the fact that we did it so quickly and opened up shop out there as a blockbuster and had that store for several, um, and ended up losing that store because that was when,  blockbusters started to decline and we weren't really sure what what was going to happen.

And our lease was up and we. Sign another five year lease because at the time we were like, well, we don't really know what our future is going to hold if we're gonna be here another year, another five years

So that's kind of how we lost that store. what year was that?  pretty sure it was the end of 2014. So I think blockbuster had been struggling and, and we might have actually gone into bankruptcy already,  or the corporate store. And,  we ended up closing several stores like within a year, and it was just really crazy.

We, so we lost the matter store to El least. And then we had a south location here in Bend that we had relocated, and then our lease was up and another big chain was coming into the center and they wanted part of our store for parking. And so we were like, well, no, we're not willing to do that. So they just waited out for our lease to be up.

And then said, well, we're going to turn part of your store into a parking lot. So we ended up closing that location and, and that was crazy cuz we closed that location. And I know we talked about this in the documentary, but we closed that location and remodeled our East side one  and because we had downsized it was a huge store and we down, we.

You know, downsized it by half. We had taken the big sign off and we were taking the smaller sign from our soft location and moving it over there when Blockbuster announced that they were closing part of their corporate stores. And everybody thought we closed the store cuz we took the sign down and it was like the craziest thing.

I would see people in Costco or, or around town and they'd be like, oh, you closed your store. And I'm like, . We didn't close it. We're just moving the sign. No, no, no. I, I saw the news. You're closed. I'm like, no, I promise you , I'd be the first to know if we closed the store. It's not closed. It's just changing signs.

But anyway, that was kind of our first, realization as what it was going to look like as the corporate stores were all shutting down. Yeah. And it, and it was pretty ugly because we, you know, I tell people all the.  during that, I didn't want people to know where I worked because people would, you know, say, you know, people who didn't know that I was already the general manager at Blockbuster would.

Be like, oh, how does it feel to be losing your job? You know, blockbuster sucks. Everybody's gonna, they're all closing and they're horrible. And I'd be like, oh geez. And I wouldn't wanna have that conversation about how we were locally owned and, and everything. And at one point we actually painted a thing on the front of the store that said, locally owned.

Oh, here Ben. Cause our owners lived here in Bens, and we're like, we're local. We're, you know, we operate under the big name, but we're, we're still, you know, locally owned. Um, but anyway, and, and to Caoc go full circle back now to. I'm not telling people where I work cuz otherwise people are like, oh my God, you're the last one and then I'll never get my groceries.

So, um, oh, so now it's, you'll get like super fans like me and you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm tired of Sandy Harding . Well, and you know, the best part, like, I, I love hearing people's stories cuz it makes me feel good and it reminds me why I do what I do every day. When people tell me, you know, their wonderful stories about their family lives and going to Blockbuster and how important it was.

But my favorite thing of all is when a local comes up and wants to take a picture with me or tells me how good of a job our store is doing. Um, because then I realize that we're really representing Bend in our community and then that makes me feel really good too. So. Well, that was one of my questions is, it's touched a little bit in the documentary, but for those who might not have seen it, cuz it's been a couple years,  since the last Blockbuster documentary 

what's the reason why people actually go to the store or in general, a store to get a physical copy and then you have to come back to return it,  to avoid penalties, but it seems like a lot of work versus then just a click on your Roku or whatever you're using. Yeah. Well, and I think that a hundred percent the local support, it was just a matter.

not wanting to let us die. Like they just kept supporting us and kept coming. And even during the pandemic, you know, we were not, when the governor, you know, shut down places here in Oregon, we were not one of the ones on the list that was mandatory shutdown.  We tried to stay open and suddenly realized there's no way we were gonna be able to, cuz we, at that point, people were already coming, traveling to see us. Mm-hmm.  and people would come in and everybody would just kind of congregate under the same or in the same area. And we're like, okay, we can't really keep people safe.

And at that time, I mean, we were all still wearing gloves and masks and Right. You know, we, we didn't realize that it wasn't from touching, it was more from the airborne issue.  And so everybody really didn't know what to do. So we went ahead and shut down for a couple weeks and then we reopened.

Very limited hours and did curbside service, which was something we had never done before. Mm-hmm. , but we still had people coming in here trying to help us stay open. People were still calling me at home and When are you gonna be there? I'm gonna come down to get some movies and, and I, we have movie pass customers who have like a monthly subscription and I called all of them and said, would you like me to suspend it until we know what's going on so you're not still paying.

You know, a fee for something you can't use. And I did not have to shut one down. They were all like, Nope, we're gonna continue to support the store. Wow. Even if we can't come in every day to rent a movie. So, uh, we definitely have that, um, that loyal fan base here that, that wanna see us succeed. And not just because we're the last one, but because we've been a part of the community for 30 years.

So they wanna see us survive, but I think on the bigger.  the nostalgia piece is a huge part of things for us now. There's no way we would've survived Covid on just those loyal, um, people coming in the t-shirt sales, the merchandise sales and the online portion of our store now is what definitely allowed us to make it through the pandemic.

Mm-hmm. . And I think the pandemic, we, you know, we had the fortune. There was a lot of small businesses that struggled and, and so I wanna make sure I give a shout out to all of them because anyone who was able to survive it, I know how hard that was. And we had the nostalgia behind us, which helped us.

 And a lot of people did not. So I have not taken for granted that, that we had that special piece. But I think that during the pandemic, all of us that were forced to be at home and, and suddenly you're like, okay, what do we do? We're all sitting here in the house and yes, we can turn on Netflix. And then we started remembering what it used to be like when we actually sat around and communicated instead of being on our phones all the time.

And people started to remember, you know, when they got to go to Blockbuster or when they, you know, would go to a movie mm-hmm.  or they would go do something as a family. And I think that that kind of. Um, pushed that nostalgia piece up a little bit more even, because people remembered, you know, what it was like and how much fun it was.

And, and that's the thing I was alluding to earlier when I was talking about people's stories, is that, I mean I've told this story,  several times mm-hmm. , but it was a right after we became, um, the last one and, and.  I was standing, helping the customer, and I looked up and there was a gal standing next to me and she had tears to eyes.

And at first I thought something was wrong, and I was like, oh my gosh, are you okay? And she's like, I'm all right. And then the customer I was helping was like, are you sure you're okay? And, and so I finished helping that customer and I looked, I go, what can I do to help you? And, and she's like, I just have to tell you how important this is to me.

Her dad had recently passed away and her parents had been divorced. And over the weekends when she went and spent with her, Their thing was to go to Blockbuster Rent a movie, and that was their time they spent together. And so she came to visit our store and it was just bringing back the memories of her dad and how special it was and how much it meant to her to be able to come to the store again after he had passed.

And anyway, it was just very touching and tearing the stories that I get all the time. And I think that those of us who maybe haven't had that kind of a tragedy, still remember, I mean, my husband and I came to this very video store. On one of our first dates, I remember coming to renting a few Good Men and  oh gosh, now I'm just drawing a blank.

 Forever Young with Mel Gibson. But I remember coming, renting those two movies and going and buy a German chocolate cake cuz it was his favorite cake for his birthday right after we started dating. And that was our thing, we came here to the store and so I, I even have a story about this location or about going to Blockbuster.

And I think we all do, we all have that story, whether it. With our dad or with our significant other or just, you know, riding our bikes down to Blockbuster with our friends or rent a video game or, you know, I've heard so many different stories that I think it just brings back, I don't know, just, um, the good times.

I don't know how else to say it. Oh yeah, it's so nostalgia. every weekend I was  taking my bike and going to Blockbuster. My quick story is cuz I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.  they knew me. They knew I was the 12 year old girl who was obsessed with movies. And  one time I go with my mother and 

I had a crush on Ben Affleck cuz Pearl Harbor had come out and somebody told me to watch Dogma, the film with him, Kevin Smith's dogma. And now looking back on it, I'm like, I think he was teasing me cuz it's such a weird movie. But I went to go rent it and it was a new employee of Blockbuster and he looked at me this like 12 year old girl and her mother, and he is like, um, just so you know, this movie's rated R.

Bad language and there's a poop monster in it or something like, and, and I gave him the dirtiest look. I'm like, do you know who I am? I keep this store running. I come every weekend. How dare you in like my face. And my mom's like, what? And he's like, do you still want me to rent? You wanna rent this for your child?

And she's like, I mean, did you already purchase it? Like, did we already rent? He's like, yeah. And she's like, well, we'll just go outside and return it. And I'm like, no. And so, I tricked her into not letting me return. And it's become one of my favorite films because of like, just despite the poop monster.

And I've met Kevin Smith a couple times and he is such a gem. Um, never met Ben Affleck, but  I did relate to it from just the story of, of being religiously curious and, and all sorts, like what's the purpose of it? I loved it. I loved it. . That's my, I I was like, and then just for the record, I never saw that employee again.

I think he was too nosy. , so, oh, that's funny. But Blockbuster, I started tearing up when in the documentary they give it to people who are being interviewed at vhs. And I'm like, I remember just playing with the case while we're watching the movies, the click, click, all that. And I just started tearing up or like hearing your, the story you shared with the woman and her father.

Definitely. It was a whole thing. And one of the reasons why it has to be, I know what you did last summer is my cousins and I would always rent that whenever we visited each other. We would go to the Blockbuster and rent that movie and get scared. And then it was the movie for years that we would always rent whenever we had a little reunion.

And so it's just it. It is the nostalgia. So I had a question. What's the furthest. Like a person who's visited, how far did they come from visiting? Because I know in the documentary somebody from Spain comes and meanwhile I'm like, it's a seven hour flight from DC or so . So, well I think that we Googled it and Cape Town South Africa Nice.

I think was the  furthest. But we've had people from all over. Um, we just, last week, actually it was two weeks ago. We actually had someone come from Jerusalem who had their blockbuster card in Hebrew still, and I, and if you would, I should have thought about it. I should have taken a picture and I did not.

But I was just so overwhelmed by the fact that he had his card and he was on vacation and he still lived. In Israel. He still was over there. And so he came over here and he was on vacation and came to our store of, and brought his card with him just so he could show us.

And I thought that that was so cool. Um, but we've had people here from all over the world, I mean, Dubai. Um, from Australia, from, you know, everywhere. I think that there's probably    every country on the continent has been here at some point.    I was looking at some recent articles and there was one from KTLA that came and you still said, uh, quote, I think we have a couple more years left.

And I was like, do you really think, are you always waiting for or anticipating that it will. Well, you know, it's weirdest thing is that. Yeah. I mean, I remember 2018 when we closed our Redmond location and we closed that in March, and this was before we found out Alaska was closing by a couple months.

Mm-hmm.  and I started like throwing things out and purging things that were out in that location thinking, okay, we, we'll be lucky if this, if the bin store lasts out throughout the year. And so we were kind of finally planning on it was gonna be a, it was gonna be done and. And then Alaska closed, and that was almost five years ago.

It'd be five years in July. So at this point we've already had almost another five years beyond what I thought we were going to have. So I'm appreciative of every single year. Do I think we have another couple of years? Probably. I think that, you know, every time I get a phone call, like this one from you and I get a chance to talk about the store.

Maybe get a few more people listening to our story and going and buying a t-shirt online or coming to visit. It all just kind of helps extend out our period of time that we're gonna be open. And so I'm super appreciative of the phone calls and thank you for having me on your show,  but I.

I do think that we have a couple more years and, my husband and I kind of laughed. I know I talked about the documentary that we had six years left. We're down to three years now. Um, less than three years now. Yeah. And he's like, okay. So the plan was we were going to move over where our grandkids are in Idaho and be closer to our grandkids when we retired.

 He's like, I think we have a few more years before we have to do that or we get to do that. And I was like, yeah, I think we do too. . And so it was kind of funny.  I'm willing to write it out as long as possible, so if it means a couple more years or another five years, I'm good with that. Do you ever get a vacation cuz you deserve one?

Um, I too, and I actually recently went to Hawaii, with my husband and a couple of our boys, and we had a great time. And then I came back and rushed off to the Portland Expo last week to the Retro Gaming Expo, and we recreated part of our store, which was a lot of fun. We'd never done anything like that.

We'd never left the store in. Taking merchandise and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. It was a, a very long,  weekend, but it was definitely fun. But yes, I do get vacations from time to time, so  I did wanna ask, do you guys still have some of the fill memorabilia that is mentioned, like the Russel Crow costumes that were given to from Alaska to get more.

We do still have those in there and we have a lot of other things,  that people have donated to the store. People will send me,  a lot of personal things. You know, people will send me their old blockbuster cards or just random things that meant something to them that they wanna share. I have ex-employees who will come up here and, you know, bring me their old name tags or different things, which is really special.

So we have a, a case with all that in there.  And VHS tapes, you were asking about that earlier. Mentioning that we have people who donate VHS tapes. All the time and old DVDs and they'll find them in their attic or their garage or their basement and they'll send them to us, which is, is wonderful because there's a lot of times we find, you know, gems in there we don't have on our shelves and you can throw 'em out there.

But anyway, it's a lot of fun cuz we, you know, I have a copy of The Shining, which is my favorite mm-hmm.  Horror movie.  In my office that I play quite often. I actually got a copy of E Walks. I don't know, you are way too young to remember E walks, but, you know, I remember watching it on the, Disney, you know, Sunday night movie.

on television and love the e walks, which the, you know, graphics are horrible, but,  it's still a wonderful show to watch.  But anyway, we get all kinds of fun stuff. What about Blueray? Yep. We do still carry Blueray. Okay.

We do Blueray and dvd. I haven't dived into 4k just simply because, you know, we don't have that big of an audience for it. Okay. And, you know, we're the last one for a reason. I'm, I'm frugal and I wanna make sure that we can make a profit on it before I bring it into the store. Yeah. So, before we end, I wanted to ask, how can people.

Help Blockbuster. And you, you mentioned that the local community has been so supportive. Is there any particular shout outs that you want to share to the audience?  You know, cause we are listened all over, not just DC Yeah. And I would love to just. Again, thank everyone for the love and support because we do have our website, which a lot of people who can't come to the store.

I've had people, you know, send us old movies or I've had even gal send me $5. She's like, if I was there I'd rent a movie, but I can't be, so I'm gonna send you $5. And I thought that was really like, sweet. It's actually framed in my office. But, you know, we have $2 membership cards on the online and anything that anyone can do to help support it.

If you, if you want to buy something, you know, go. You know, band blockbuster.com and, and buy something on there or just, continue to just send me those letters. And just the good vibes because that's kind of what's keeping us going. And the address is on the website, so I can put that in the show notes.

If they wanna send a physical Oh yeah, letter, absolutely. Of the DVDs. I'll put that in there. Thank you so much, Sandy. I really hope I can see you in person and rent. I know what you did last summer. I still know what you did last summer. Maybe dogma. I don't know. I'm so excited. This has been a highlight for me.

Thank you so much. You're very sweet. Well, thank you for, for reaching out. I appreciate it. Thank you.