Return of the video store? Michigan shop stocks more than 10,000 VHS tapes
- Last updated: May 29, 2026 | 08:32
At first, Static Tape Video only stocked a couple dozen VHS tapes. But after the COVID-19 pandemic, owner Harrison Lange, 30, says VHS tapes started “flying off the shelf” of his retro video store in Muskegon. “That’s when the VHS boom happened,” he said. There are now more than 10,000 tapes lining the walls, packed onto shelves two rows deep. Most are $1. They surround a tower of boxy TVs, playing a movie cut with static. Vintage pinball machines ding nearby.
The rest of the store brims with DVDs and Blu-rays. As on-demand streaming took over in the past decade, video stores became relics of the past. Blockbuster and Family Video sputtered out, leaving empty storefronts to collect dust throughout the country. But a growing enthusiasm for physical media means Video Home Systems are back. “There’s something special about looking through aisles and finding a movie,” Lange said.
There’s a mix of factors powering this revival: customers are cutting back on streaming services as costs go up. Digital overload has prompted people to find ways to unplug. And younger generations, fatigued by social media, are increasingly seeking real experiences, tangible products and human connections. “People want to touch grass,” said Marcus Collins, a marketing professor from the University of Michigan. “They want to feel something is real. Especially at a time when you know, the world is dominated with AI slop, people don’t even know what’s real.”
All this has fuelled a multi-billion-dollar nostalgia economy – vinyl records, books, dumbphones, CDs and VHS. And in Michigan, a few video stores are catching the wave of customers going analog.
Independent video stores were long gone.
Blockbuster had closed shop (other than the last store on earth). Family Video was on death’s door. And in that, Lange saw an opportunity: “People are going to not only want a video store, but I felt like it was going to be a need.” Static Tape, which sells new and used movies, music and video games, opened in 2019. Since then, the store has expanded three times, filling out suites in Muskegon’s Lakes Mall to satisfy a growing appetite for physical movies. “It’s not slowed down,” Lange said.
Lange sources his VHS supply by travelling to Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and all over Michigan. He recently drove across the state to pick up 600 tapes in Flint. Stacks of VHS also land in his lap, occasionally a library curated by someone who recently passed away.
“You always got to approach it as, this is someone’s collection,” he said. Static Tape is among a resurrection of brick-and-mortar video stores that have opened throughout the country including in Los Angeles, New York, Texas and Iowa. More have popped up in Michigan.
There’s Alive Again, a 1980s horror store that sells VHS, DVDs, books and collectibles, in Grand Rapids. Your Media Exchange buys and sells music, books and movies (even laserdiscs) in Ann Arbor. And vintage stores throughout the state are stocking shelves with old movies. Even a new video rental store opened last year. Bardertown Video, aiming to recapture the bygone era of mom-and-pop video rental stores, is a “little corner of love” for owner Rob Grimes, 59, and employee Aric Whelan, 49. Located south of Grand Rapids, the shop rents VHS tapes for $1 a week. No VCR? That can be rented too.
“There is a whole new generation that is seizing the day and starting to discover there’s a certain amount of magic standing in a store, discovering something you love,” Grimes said.
The VHS gospel is also spreading online. A VHS subreddit has nearly 80,000 tapeheads. Thousands of enthusiasts post their hauls, collections and rare finds in Facebook groups. And more than 4 million Instagram posts have been tagged under #vhs with some users posting about switching to old TVs, “No commercials. No more infinite options. No subscriptions. Pure nostalgia magic.”
The trend even got a celebrity endorsement from comedian Pete Davidson who bought 10,000 sealed VHS tapes on a hunch they’d “be worth billions of dollars.” But that investment, he recently admitted, didn’t pan out.
Alexander Bartoli, 39, started collecting movies about five years ago when he found old VHS tapes from his childhood. He now has a “museum” of DVDs stored in thin cases and a newly built wall holding 400 tapes in his basement.
“Nothing compares to putting in the VHS and (seeing) the actual quality, the tracking and the clicking,” he said.
Bartoli, a regular shopper at Static Tape, wants to share the experience of browsing a video store with his kids. His 6-year-old daughter, Amelia, is now building her own collection of movies that aren’t online.
At Static Tape, customers are encouraged to linger over the vast collection of movies – from collectibles like Indiana Jones, to Disney classics and even tapes of old Detroit Lions games, home recordings from the early 90s labelled with handwritten sticky notes.
And the store hosts events like Michigan is Dead, a horror convention and tape swap that drew hundreds of people this year.
“People want to go out and do things,” said Lange. “Parents especially want their kids to go out and experience things because they remember going to the video store and how much they loved it.”
As the digital era has overwhelmed people with screens, content, doomscrolling and algorithms, Collins says people are yearning for tangible products and lived experiences.
Tribune News Service