There was a time in this fair land when the video store was king. You couldn't drive a few blocks without seeing a Blockbuster, Hollywood, Video Tyme or Video Palace on a street corner or in a strip mall.

But now thanks to streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu, video stores are miles apart, but we still have them, for a little bit longer.

Remember those days when you might spend half of your Friday night trying to come to a family consensus on what movie to rent? And then there was the gentle reminder to 'Be Kind. Rewind.' before you brought your tape back.

(Quick aside:  I once saw a clerk admonish a guy for not rewinding a DVD. I'm not sure how you're supposed to do that.)

Not counting the many Redbox kiosks and the exclusive adult/porn video stores (you'll have to do your own research on those), there are 17 video stores still renting videos and DVDs in West Michigan, 16 of which belong to the long-running Family Video chain.

Family Video owns six active stores in the Grand Rapids metro, plus four in Muskegon, two in Holland and one each in Lowell, Cedar Springs, Sparta and Grand Haven.

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In addition, Bronco Video in Coopersville is still cooking on Randall Street, next to the Snap Fitness.

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A word of warning: I'm not sure if any of them still have tapes available in the Beta format.

 

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