The world’s last Blockbuster is holding strong.
The 20-year-old Bend, Oregon, location that became the only Blockbuster left on the planet–has managed to keep afloat during the global pandemic.
None of the store’s dozen-plus employees have been laid off, and they continue to receive paychecks through the closing and reopening that occurred while management figured out best safety practices for employees and customers.
In the early days of this crisis, general manager Sandi Harding told Vice News, “Everybody would be converging in the same area, everybody wanted to see the John Oliver stuff, or everybody wanted to go to the new release section.”
She continued: “I wasn’t able to keep people apart, and I thought ‘Well, this isn’t going to work.’ ”
After closing for a few days to regroup, the store reopened with curbside pick-up. Customers called Blockbuster to request and pay for a film, and showed up at the store to receive a sanitized DVD in a Ziplock bag.
Harding then felt comfortable enough with their safety measures to open the doors to 10 people at a time.
Inside the store, arrows on the ground help guide foot traffic so that customers can maintain a safe distance from one another. Employees are also wearing gloves, masks and are wiping down each video before and after it leaves the store.
Harding joked, “I had a customer come in and she said, ‘I am so grateful that you reopened, because I couldn’t flip through Netflix one more time,’ ” she said.
