Brian Hogan, a father of two, barbershop owner, and film buff in Des Moines, Iowa, found himself fairly miserable in the midst of the pandemic. With his Barbershop business all but obliterated, Brian was looking for a project to keep his sanity.
That’s when he heard that his favourite, childhood video store, Video Warehouse, was going out of business after 34 years.
Buying out the contents of the video store, including the shelves and the ‘Tape Return” sign, Brian embarked on the DIY project to create an in-house video store.
He said, “I spent a lot of days sitting in my chair hoping people would come and get their hair cut. I’d go home and catalogue and start hanging shelves. It took my mind off things.”
With no intension of setting the video store as a business, Brian explained: “It’s more of a time capsule,” meant for family and friends, he said. “Friends who come over get to pick out a movie and we watch it.”
He continued: “I spent a good part of my childhood in the video store. That was a Friday night thing. You didn’t just go to the video store. You went to the video store.”