THE LAST DAYS OF RENTALS?

NOT IF YOU ASK CHAMPAGNE VIDEO By Alexa Schirtzinger For years, people have been telling Mike Cuevas that Champagne Video would go under. They've been saying what one customer recently managed to utter, without the faintest hint of irony, while browsing the store's DVD collection: "It's a dinosaur. It's like the drive-in." But Cuevas has been managing Champagne Video's East Side location for 15 years, and the oddly charming little rental shop, trimmed in hot-pink neon, movie-themed cartoon posters and fluorescent lighting, has yet to be beaten. "There's always the rumor-when Blockbuster comes, or pay-per-view, or Netflix-that that's the end of us," Cuevas says, his brown eyes peering intently through a pair of round gold spectacles that give him an owlish look. But the same thing happens every time, he explains: there's always an initial dip in rentals-and then a recovery. "No one's ever going to open a video store again," says Cuevas, shaking his dark, silver-flecked ponytail. "But the ones that keep their wits about them-they'll stay." And Champagne? "We might outlast them all!" Cuevas exclaims, his wide Julia Roberts-caliber smile breaking into a raucous laugh. The first Champagne Video opened in Brooklyn in 1984-one year before Blockbuster Video opened its first store in Dallas, Texas. Experts were predicting the demise of the video rental business as early as 1986, but Champagne and its contemporaries-other New York stores like Video Room and Mondo Kim's, as well as national chains like Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery-did well, expanding into a growing market for home entertainment. "It just took off," says Brad Oringer, the brother of Champagne Video's owner, Marc. (Marc Oringer denied repeated requests for comment.) "It'll never be what it was, but back then it was pretty exciting." Each store had its milieu, and its corresponding supply of appropriately themed videos. Video Room, which opened in Manhattan in 1978, billed itself as "the video store for the connoisseur." Mondo Kim's became the indie-specialty rental darling of St. Marks Place. Champagne was out in Brooklyn, with a clientele that Oringer says tended to favor martial arts and action flicks. The 1980s and 1990s were the heyday of the neighborhood video rental shop. VHS became more prevalent and VCRs were a common fixture of the American home: 84 percent of Americans had one by 1997, compared with 1.1 percent in 1980. But by the mid- to late-1990s, things were changing. The percentage of American households with cable television was rising, too-from just under 20 percent in 1980 to 67 percent in 1998. And in 1994, RCA released the first commercial satellite TV system, DSS (the acronym stood for Direct Satellite System), and people could get almost anything they'd ever want to watch just by clicking through the hundreds of channels brought home by a single dish. The late 1990s also brought two more innovative forms of competition: the DVD, developed in the mid-90s, and-sound the ominous drumbeat-Netflix, which first came on the scene with online rentals in 1998. Though Netflix didn't have its first profitable quarter until 2003, the death knell of the old-time neighborhood video store seemed to be ringing in everyone's ears. Why would anyone bother to go for a five-block walk (or drive) when you could get anything you wanted, for half the price, over the Internet and have it delivered straight to your door? Champagne Video started with several locations around Brooklyn and expanded to Manhattan, but today, there are only two stores-one on First Avenue and East 82nd Street, and one on West 79th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. The East Side location, where Cuevas works, starred as the backdrop in a series of Seinfeld episodes, and a weekend night in summer means a steady stream of customers, many of whom are regulars and almost all of whom know Cuevas by name. "Hey Mike, how's it goin'?" asks a blinged-out young man in baggy jeans and a crisp white T-shirt. There are customers whose kids Cuevas has watched grow up, "Sons and daughters of original members," he reports with obvious pride. "I see second-generation families. We have a small staff and people like to see the same face. They like the consistency." "Hi!" says a tall, blond girl in a royal blue tunic dress. "Hi," says Cuevas, grinning ear to ear. It's Andrea Burns, 22-soon to be Andrea Andrews, she confesses, smiling at her fiancÃ&Copy;, Nathan. They come in a couple times a week to browse-the one tactile aspect of renting a movie that Netflix and on-demand can't deliver-and because Andrea is an independent film actress. "Mike knows everything," she gushes. "They are so into it. They'll tell you all about a movie-" "But they won't ruin it for you," Andrews adds. Cuevas knows that his knowledge is currency. "We have quite a clientele because we hire people who know movies," he says, stressing the last two words with a passion bordering on dogmatic. Unlike a crowded, understaffed Blockbuster, he adds-Cuevas' loyalty to Champagne Video is intense, and every now and again he'll take a jab at the competition-Champagne is small enough (and Cuevas' presence big enough) that the manager can be almost everywhere at once. "We know about movies," Cuevas says. "You've got to focus on movies. We know people's habits, people's tastes." He recommends different things to different people, according to what he has in stock and how well he knows the customer. "I have people who come in every week and go, 'Mike, whaddya got?' I know what people like." "And couples," he adds-"It's fun to see them argue with each other. Men and women never want to see the same thing." Cuevas is a self-described "movie buff since age 7," when he started admiring classics starring Humphrey Bogart. He didn't actually work at a movie store until 1993, when he lost his other job as a manager at Burke and Burke, the erstwhile New York gourmet deli chain. On his last day at Burke and Burke, Cuevas says, he didn't know what to do. "I started walking uptown, and I went into the first video store that had a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window," Cuevas says. The rest is history. Today, Cuevas himself is as much a part of the Champagne Video experience as the tailored movie recommendations he makes for his regular customers. Back at the West Side store, Brad Oringer manages a smaller, more sedate version of Cuevas' roost. Tucked in next to the quiet restaurants and apartments of West 79th Street, the West Side Champagne looks a little like a fluorescent-lit New York apartment: long, skinny and unremarkable. Behind the counter, the walls are papered with posters for new and upcoming releases-Oringer says that despite the market for independent and foreign films, especially from people who frequent local video stores, new releases are still the biggest moneymakers-Smart People, What Happened in Vegas, Prom Night. Brad Oringer is tall and well-built, but he affects a set of unassuming mannerisms that give the impression of a shy person. "I was shy," Oringer confirms, "but now I'm more laid-back." He fell into his first job when he was 14, helping out at a cleaning store near where he grew up in Brooklyn. When his brother Marc started Champagne, Oringer was working as a dispatcher for a Manhattan messenger service. He started filling in part-time at the video store, but eventually he switched to full-time and became a store manager. As he's explaining this, a woman in a pale blue sundress and white flip-flops comes up to the counter with a DVD-Champagne doesn't offer VHS rentals anymore-and asks to open an account. Like an auctioneer with centuries of experience, Oringer rattles off the necessary details in rapid-fire: all rentals are $4.49; new releases are only yours for one day; there are no cards. "You don't take cards?" the woman asks, alarmed. "Oh, we do," Oringer replies. "But we don't have membership cards. Your ID is just your last name or your phone number." For the next guy, though, Oringer doesn't have to say much at all. The computers are down, so he's writing down every name and the corresponding movie rental by hand. "Hi," Oringer says, squinting genially at a tall, clean-shaven man in trim, neat clothes. The guy nods. "S, C, H-you'll have to remind me," Oringer says, leaning down to the counter to write the name down. "You've got a great memory," the guy says, filling in the last few letters. "Have a good night." Oringer says his clientele spans a range of ages and occupations, from kids and their parents to teenagers, young adults and elderly people. "Over time, you build up some loyal clientele who support small businesses," Oringer says. He echoes what Cuevas says, which isn't surprising, and is probably true of anyone who's worked in the same store in the same place for decades: "It sounds clichÃ&Copy;, but there are people-you see their kids grow up." A few years ago, Champagne Video met with its most concrete challenge: A Blockbuster moved in just blocks from the East Side store, on 86th Street and First Avenue, bringing all the dire predictions about the decline of the neighborhood movie store to a very personal level. To make things worse, it was just at Blockbuster's peak that Champagne Video collapsed-literally. "There was a time, some years ago," Cuevas recounts, "when the roof fell in. It was a Saturday night, so it was busy, and my boss was here." It was water damage, he explained, that had been building for some time, and with one creak, Cuevas and the staff knew they had to act. "We got all the staff out," Cuevas continues, "but there was this one customer who wouldn't go-he wanted to rent the movie. So Marc [Oringer, the owner] just pushed him out"-Cuevas re-enacts a violent push-"and the roof collapsed. Somebody could've been killed; it was like a bomb hit." Cuevas shakes his head and then smiles suddenly. "Later, when people asked me what happened, I told them Blockbuster bombed us." He laughs uproariously at his own joke-still funny, six years later. Oringer, for his part, was a little less easygoing about the whole thing. "I never thought we'd make it with Blockbuster," he says now. But something funny happened: The very assets that had made Blockbuster seem unbeatable-its ubiquity, its methodical efficiency, its connection to a huge corporation-seemed to undermine it. In February of 2006, New York real estate magazine The Real Deal reported that 30 percent of Blockbuster stores would reduce their size or close in the coming year due to losses it blamed on Netflix and Internet video sharing-as well as New York's consistently back-breaking rents. But the magazine also reported that independent video stores were somehow immune-Kim's was even in the process of opening a new store in Jersey City-because "they go broad instead of deep, offering foreign and specialty titles that cater to the sophisticated urban viewer." For instance, says Cuevas, "Blockbuster doesn't have an adult section." He gestures to a discreetly walled-off room in the back of the store. The children's section, by contrast, is in front, right next to the main window. Cuevas says-with a conspiratorial giggle-he sees all sorts of people going for the adult films, from frisky couples to bored businessmen looking for stimulation. It's hidden, though, "because it should be hidden. It's for parents," Cuevas adds with a conspiratorial giggle. "And-and for grandma." You can't help but love this guy. But Cuevas laments his store's lack of a gay and lesbian section-"We have movies that involve that, but not a section, and we need a section"-and while he generally likes his owner's choices for movies to keep in stock, he wishes he had a little more say in bringing more varied films in. "We're a little weak on the independent stuff," Cuevas says. "In this neighborhood, it's different-you want to have a large independent section-your Alfred Hitchcock, your Woody Allen. But go 10 blocks north and maybe you want a big martial arts section." There's a whole section of staff picks: Mary likes Shaun of the Dead and Half Baked; Nick likes the more sober Wag the Dog and the 1965 version of Boris Pasternak's tragic masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago. The only one from Cuevas I can find is Waiting for Guffman, Christopher Guest's magnificent 1990s foray into the world of eighth-tier-theater absurdity. A few years ago, the nearby Blockbuster closed. But that didn't necessarily mean Champagne had won. Netflix was still expanding-and the quickly spreading idea that renting movies online was better for the environment because it didn't involve driving a car to a video store (not that most New Yorkers do that) was also helping to undermine local video stores. As if to make matters worse, this June, the Los Angeles Times reported that some Hollywood studios were considering releasing their films on cable, Internet and DVD at the same time, undermining the "lag time" between when a film is released in theaters and on TV that has until now provided the mainstay profits for the rental industry. And this month, one of Mondo Kim's locations on the Upper West Side is selling off its DVDs in a huge closing sale. No matter what happens, says Oringer, "It's been a good ride. It's not going to be what it used to be," he continues. "You've got to get through these slower times." He has a point, too: with the economy in a recession, maybe no one-even Netflix-is doing that well. But a recession can also mean fewer nights out and a surge in demand for home entertainment. Sure enough, last month Reuters reported a 1.6 percent increase in spending on DVD and Blu-Ray Disc rentals and purchases over 2007. And in the end, there will always be a market for the rainy-day pleasure of browsing through shelves of movies, not knowing what you want until you see it there before you, in all its splendor, wedged inexplicably between Audrey Hepburn and Knocked Up.