In this high-tech, higher-income Dallas suburb, The Video Store at Oakridge Plaza has porn for about half its video and DVD stock and gives Blockbuster Video a proverbial run for its proverbial money. But manager Mike Hill of The Video Store tells AVN On The Net it isn't just any porn they offer - they lean as heavily toward the older, classic adult films as the new releases and trends.
In fact, a blurb on their Web site (www.video-store.com) says it even better: Sad but true! They just don't make them like they used (sic) to!. We have one of the largest selections of erotic classics in the Metroplex. Rare, unedited, many out of print, classics of the 70s and 80s. Check out our Erotic Classics section and see erotica before the "shaved crotch, body by Dow Corning era of the 90s."
"I venture to say we probably have one of the bigger selections of adult classics," Hill says by telephone from The Video Store, which has been open for sixteen years but offering adult material for eleven.
"I buy the new stuff, of course, but it's just that our clientele…are probably not really the younger people, mostly," he continues. "They're probably in their 40s or 50s, and a lot of them realize that stuff made 20-30 years ago is better than the stuff being made today."
Told that some veterans of the porn industry, like legendary star Marilyn Chambers, believe there are too many porn films and videos being made today, undermining quality work, Hill agrees, adding he aims explicitly for what he thinks is the higher quality product among today's work.
"That's true," he says. "I try to support the high quality stuff all I can. We buy on any high quality thing coming out - Andrew Blake, Cameron Grant, anyone doing quality stuff I try to support them."
Hill says there's another kind of trend making for his store's success - his sales are outpacing his rentals. "We've seen a turnaround in our business the last couple of years," he says, "where our rentals have fallen off and our sales have really picked up. I think most of the reason is…we advertise over a larger area and pull people in over a larger area than a normal video store."
Hill's store sits in Garland right across from the city line, on the other side of which is Richardson, which has no adult businesses, and south of Plano, which also has no adult businesses. And distance, he says, feeds a good part of his success.
"I've run six to eight newspaper ads in Plano and have about five thousand members on my books from Plano, driving eight to twenty miles to get to my store," he says. "And that has a lot to do with it, too, they don't want to drive that far to rent and have to come back in a day or two."
In descending order, The Video Store's top five rentals, as listed on their Web site Store's Web site this week, are Euro Hardball 2, Seymore Butts: Tushy Tahitian Style, Euro Angels 12, Please!, and Fresh Meat 6. Among his best sellers? Hill says the Blue Vanity line of real vintage adult film is a particular mover.
"They're kind of peep show loops and stag films going back to the early 1900s," he says. "They've probably got the largest selection in the world of that stuff. I do real well with that."
The Video Store also offers novelties, games, adult cards, adult gifts, and more. To see a little more, you can visit them at Oakridge Plaza on Jupiter Road at Beltline in Garland, or visit www.video-store.com.
