Mission impossible: Atascadero video store survives 30 years in dying industry

John’s Video Palace is celebrating 30 years in business. Against all odds, the Atascadero video store has outlived giants like Blockbuster in town.

“Fun times, we’ve had a good thirty years,” said store owner John Taft.

Taft said the industry is not what it used to be when he opened shop in 1988.

“Video business was a lot much busier back then, ’cause there was no cable, no internet.”

So how has the store managed to stick around in the Netflix era?

“Life’s tough out there –people come here for a break from reality.”

And the customer service.

“‘Hey there was this movie, and this person’s in it but I can’t remember the name of the movie!’…And he like knows it, it’s really helpful,” said one of Taft’s most frequent customers, Scott Strong.

“What are you in the mood for, what’s your taste? ‘Cause any movie is good for certain people,” explained Taft. “‘I need a good action movie.’ Or ‘this is a good comedy?’ I go, ‘Do you like the actor?’ ‘Well he’s ok..’ Well the whole movie is about this guy.”

But even 30 years and thousands of films later, Taft confesses it’s getting harder to “Stay Alive”.

“I need to move into a smaller building, ’cause rent costs so much. Every year it’s going down, it’s going down.”

But as long as his loyal customers remember John’s Video Palace…

“There’s just things here that you can’t find on Netlifx,” said Strong.

“There’s no video stores down in L.A, only Redbox,” said Savannah Dawn Stuart who was visiting from Los Angeles. “They have a lot of good movies here, and some movies that I wanna see.”

Taft could avoid “Doomsday” for.. who knows, maybe another 30 more years.