For some reason the memory that sticks out of all the times I was in Suncoast was when I walked in and prominently displayed on the front wall was a huge line of VHS tapes that presumably was a complete collection of Dark Shadows which I had never heard of up to that point.
Dark Shadows on VHS had a strong following at our location. We had a few dozen people who were working towards collecting them all. They would come in every week and buy one or two of them like clockwork.
Star Trek was the only show on VHS that was more popular at the time in the store.
These were great memories! We used to get our haircut at a salon in our local mall across from Suncoast. When I was in maybe fourth grade, my dad left me in the salon while he went to browse at Suncoast. He came back with a VHS copy of Grease, which my sister and I had never heard of. The movie starts with the melodramatic "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" sequence on the beach, followed by the animated title sequence. My sister and I were both so confused by what he was showing us, but by the end, we adored the movie. It was definitely not age appropriate for us, but we watched that old VHS tape hundreds of times and learned all the songs and dances. I don't remember buying anything else there- it was always expensive, but still fun to browse.
I didn't know Best Buy owned them for a time either!
That is such a perfect Suncoast memory. I love the idea of your dad wandering across the mall and coming back with Grease like he had discovered something you both needed to see. That was part of the fun of the store, even when you were not planning on buying anything. You could still wander around and end up thinking about movies you did not know yet.
I was no longer working there when they were purchased by Best Buy and had no idea it happened either.
As the guy who was running the Gurnee Mills store in Illinois all the way through the end of 2004, I have some very fond memories of the place and the people. The regular customers felt like family and the crew was very tight knit. We all left when we saw the numbers going into Christmas. The writing was in the P&L reports, and we knew how to read them. Most of us went on to get degrees, start families, the usual. I’m the only one who still works in anything film-adjacent. That said, I know for a fact I could call up one of my old employees any time and they would still be able to name at least 5 Kubrick films.
I really relate to this. We had the right crew and regulars and it stopped feeling like just another mall job. I worked the floor, stocked, rang people up, cleaned, all the usual stuff, but the people made it feel different. You knew who was coming in, what they liked, what they were waiting for, and who was just there to talk movies for a while. I love the Kubrick test because that feels very Suncoast to me. If you didn't know 5 when you started, a few months later, you did. It was retail, but it attracted a crew that actually cared about movies.
“Suncoast Motion Picture Company began in Roseville, Minnesota in 1986, though it was not called Suncoast yet.”
Wow. As a life-long Minnesotan and 40 year Twin Cities resident, I had no idea Suncoast had local roots!
I personally loved visiting stores like Suncoast and Warner Bros. Studio Store back in the early 90’s. As a big fan of film in general and animation in particular, I felt these niche stores understood what customers like me wanted to see and, of course, buy. Definitely some of the most fun I’ve had “browsing” in any store. Thanks for the great and informative overview!
I love that Suncoast has that Minnesota connection. Since it came out of Musicland, the Twin Cities roots make sense, but it is still one of those details that gets lost because most of us remember it as a mall store first.
And I agree about Suncoast and the Warner Bros. Studio Store. They were great browsing stores because they understood that movies and animation had or should have a whole world of stuff around them. You could walk in with no plan to buy anything, not get anything and still be entertained by what you found.
Exactly! I could even dream about saving up and buying some of the pricier prints or limited edition merchandise I’d never seen (or even heard about) anywhere else. We tend to forget how tricky it was to buy specialty merchandise before the advent of the internet.
For some reason the memory that sticks out of all the times I was in Suncoast was when I walked in and prominently displayed on the front wall was a huge line of VHS tapes that presumably was a complete collection of Dark Shadows which I had never heard of up to that point.
Dark Shadows on VHS had a strong following at our location. We had a few dozen people who were working towards collecting them all. They would come in every week and buy one or two of them like clockwork.
Star Trek was the only show on VHS that was more popular at the time in the store.
These were great memories! We used to get our haircut at a salon in our local mall across from Suncoast. When I was in maybe fourth grade, my dad left me in the salon while he went to browse at Suncoast. He came back with a VHS copy of Grease, which my sister and I had never heard of. The movie starts with the melodramatic "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" sequence on the beach, followed by the animated title sequence. My sister and I were both so confused by what he was showing us, but by the end, we adored the movie. It was definitely not age appropriate for us, but we watched that old VHS tape hundreds of times and learned all the songs and dances. I don't remember buying anything else there- it was always expensive, but still fun to browse.
I didn't know Best Buy owned them for a time either!
That is such a perfect Suncoast memory. I love the idea of your dad wandering across the mall and coming back with Grease like he had discovered something you both needed to see. That was part of the fun of the store, even when you were not planning on buying anything. You could still wander around and end up thinking about movies you did not know yet.
I was no longer working there when they were purchased by Best Buy and had no idea it happened either.
As the guy who was running the Gurnee Mills store in Illinois all the way through the end of 2004, I have some very fond memories of the place and the people. The regular customers felt like family and the crew was very tight knit. We all left when we saw the numbers going into Christmas. The writing was in the P&L reports, and we knew how to read them. Most of us went on to get degrees, start families, the usual. I’m the only one who still works in anything film-adjacent. That said, I know for a fact I could call up one of my old employees any time and they would still be able to name at least 5 Kubrick films.
I really relate to this. We had the right crew and regulars and it stopped feeling like just another mall job. I worked the floor, stocked, rang people up, cleaned, all the usual stuff, but the people made it feel different. You knew who was coming in, what they liked, what they were waiting for, and who was just there to talk movies for a while. I love the Kubrick test because that feels very Suncoast to me. If you didn't know 5 when you started, a few months later, you did. It was retail, but it attracted a crew that actually cared about movies.
“Suncoast Motion Picture Company began in Roseville, Minnesota in 1986, though it was not called Suncoast yet.”
Wow. As a life-long Minnesotan and 40 year Twin Cities resident, I had no idea Suncoast had local roots!
I personally loved visiting stores like Suncoast and Warner Bros. Studio Store back in the early 90’s. As a big fan of film in general and animation in particular, I felt these niche stores understood what customers like me wanted to see and, of course, buy. Definitely some of the most fun I’ve had “browsing” in any store. Thanks for the great and informative overview!
I love that Suncoast has that Minnesota connection. Since it came out of Musicland, the Twin Cities roots make sense, but it is still one of those details that gets lost because most of us remember it as a mall store first.
And I agree about Suncoast and the Warner Bros. Studio Store. They were great browsing stores because they understood that movies and animation had or should have a whole world of stuff around them. You could walk in with no plan to buy anything, not get anything and still be entertained by what you found.
Exactly! I could even dream about saving up and buying some of the pricier prints or limited edition merchandise I’d never seen (or even heard about) anywhere else. We tend to forget how tricky it was to buy specialty merchandise before the advent of the internet.
"We tend to forget how tricky it was to buy specialty merchandise before the advent of the internet."
Well said. I should have followed that line of thinking in more detail at some point in the post.