FREDERICKSBURG — Reclaim Video offers an experience that promises to take its customers back to the past — for free.
Last May, the neighborhood movie rental store opened its doors. One of the last of its kind, the video store’s walls are covered with VHS tapes, Laserdisc movies, and other popular formats from that past.
It’s like walking back in time to the 1980s. Reclaim is a living museum — a way of preserving the past, employee Lauren Brumfield says.
So, with video streaming services dominating the landscape, why would anyone open a new video rental store? The inspiration comes from the owners’ shared past.
- Owners Jim Groom and Tim Owens go back to their time working as faculty at the University of Mary Washington. Groom was the Director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies and Owens was an Instructional Technology Specialist in that department.
- During the 2014-15 school year, the duo, along with other faculty created the “UMW Console,” a project that emulated what a living room in the 1980s looked like, complete with CRT TVs and VHS players.
- Students were encouraged to play with the old equipment to get an understanding of the dated tech. “The idea was to use the space for students to reflect on the era of the 1980s and the evolution of media,” said Groom.
That project served as the inspiration for Reclaim Video.
The owners are also big fans of films from the 1980s. They strive to find all the movies that they can, searching for movies on sites like eBay and Craigslist to taking donations from people in and outside the community.
In doing so, the store has put together a very wide selection of choices like Evil Dead 2, Marx Brothers movies, Return to Oz, and others. It’s something they claim that Netflix and its algorithms don’t do.
“When you’re on Netflix, they basically use this algorithm that shows you movies they think you’ll like. They may not show you something outside of that comfort zone. In a video store, you could pick up your favorite movie and then something different may catch your eye,” explains Groom
The videos are rented to customers for free. And if customers don’t have a VHS player at home, they can rent them here, too.
Reclaim is made possible by the duo’s other business — a web hosting firm and a co-working space located next to the video store.
Since 2013, Reclaim Hosting has provided educators and institutions with an easy way to offer students domains and web hosting. The company serves about 8,000 shared hosting customers and over 100 Colleges and Universities across U.S. and Europe.
Co-Work, a non-traditional office center next to the video store serves as space for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. The facility is complete with tables to work on, a conference room, and booths for telecommuters.
Groom and Owens never envisioned that the two businesses would fund Reclaim Video, starting it as a side project.
Reclaim Video is located at 2320 Plank Road in Fredericksburg.
