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.
The commitment to collecting on VHS was something. I never got to have a conversation with someone who collected a whole series on VHS only to see it get replaced. I did buy a bunch of episodes of Star Trek, but only my favorite episodes.
I was one of those people. The only series I collected on VHS was "V", two tapes a month from Columbia House I think it was, until I got the whole series (which was luckily only one season). I think I was paying $20/each or so and this was around 2000. When I replaced it on DVD and tried to put them on eBay I couldn't even get anyone to pay $20 for the whole collection and I ended up giving them to my sister.
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.
Ah, movies at Gurnee Mills! I don’t think it was at a Suncoast (but could be wrong), but I have crazy fond memories of a massive laserdisc sale at one of the GM stores in the ‘90s! Hundreds of cases of discs scattered all down the aisles of the store and a long line of movie lovers outside the gate waiting for it to open. People grabbing any title they were even slightly interested in owning and then retreating to a corner to sort and more importantly, trade with others for discs they’d snagged. I saw actual cash exchange hands between people just for the right to buy a disc that someone else would otherwise purchase. (CAV laserdiscs were particularly valuable, as were Criterion or Japanese releases.) What a time…
Nowadays, I can find any movie with the search bar. It's all there, somewhere. Even stuff that used to only be available on rare VHS recordings of television broadcasts is on the Internet. It's a Golden Age for fans of obscure media, but a part of me misses the old days when things had to be hunted down.
It used to be that movies had to be chased down from vague title listings, and you would come across all sorts of odd gems during the hunt you otherwise would've never known had existed. It was time-consuming. It was inefficient. It was also fun, and I miss it.
Suncoast was one of my favorite shopping destinations, and it was more than a store, it was an experience. Roaming through the fun merchandise and boxed sets that I dreamed of owning one day had me coming back again and again, even if I didn’t buy something each time. I can’t put a price tag on those memories. When our Suncoast finally closed, a part of my love for movies died that day too.
That really gets at what made Suncoast special. Even when you could not buy anything, it was still worth going in just to browse all the movie stuff you hoped to own someday. We lost one of the better places for people who were into movies.
It was always a treat shopping at the Suncoast in the Lehigh Valley Mall in Allentown when I was a kid. My dad always wanted the complete VHS set of Ken Burns' Civil War that was prominently on display there, but I think only ended up getting it years later when it came out on DVD and was much cheaper. Suncoast was MUCH better than the tiny FYE which eventually replaced it.
I can't remember exactly how much Civil War cost, but I remember Baseball was about $150 a few years earlier. Whenever someone bought one of those box sets it was a big deal.
Thanks for this piece! My strongest Suncoast memory is of Universal’s release of their 1931 Spanish version of Dracula. Filmed at night on the same sets as the Lugosi version but with an entirely different script, cast, and crew, by the early ‘90s it was largely considered a lost film. Then a print was found (Wikipedia say in NJ) and Universal sent it to stores with the usual Universal Monsters packaging.
I was there with my wife and SO excited to see it. However, at that point we were young parents of a 3-year-old with another on the way and living frugally, so she balked at dropping $14.95 for a copy at that precise moment and we left empty handed.
Only to never see it again. At least not that version. Turned out there were copyright issues to clear up so Universal pulled those copies from shelves. So time and again I’d scour the racks at Suncoast and other retailers, vainly searching for that one again lost film…but to no avail.
It was eventually released on DVD and was all I’d hoped it would be. But to this day, that story is used as justification for my buying something now that she thinks I should wait on. (Even to the level of a nice used car!)
“Remember the Spanish Dracula? Just because it’s here now doesn’t mean it’ll be here tomorrow!”
“Remember the Spanish Dracula?” is a very solid household argument. Physical media collecting creates those moments where waiting feels reasonable right up until the thing disappears.
I remember the hub bub around the Spanish version as well and was very into the hype and couldn't wait to see it and as a fan of the original english language version who watched it every year it was a fascinating things to see.
“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.
I eventually got the whole Dark Shadows series on DVD, although I remember seeing the VHS's at Suncoast. The price was eye watering.
The commitment to collecting on VHS was something. I never got to have a conversation with someone who collected a whole series on VHS only to see it get replaced. I did buy a bunch of episodes of Star Trek, but only my favorite episodes.
I love old VHS recordings. The old commercials that come on them are cultural time capsules.
I was one of those people. The only series I collected on VHS was "V", two tapes a month from Columbia House I think it was, until I got the whole series (which was luckily only one season). I think I was paying $20/each or so and this was around 2000. When I replaced it on DVD and tried to put them on eBay I couldn't even get anyone to pay $20 for the whole collection and I ended up giving them to my sister.
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.
Ah, movies at Gurnee Mills! I don’t think it was at a Suncoast (but could be wrong), but I have crazy fond memories of a massive laserdisc sale at one of the GM stores in the ‘90s! Hundreds of cases of discs scattered all down the aisles of the store and a long line of movie lovers outside the gate waiting for it to open. People grabbing any title they were even slightly interested in owning and then retreating to a corner to sort and more importantly, trade with others for discs they’d snagged. I saw actual cash exchange hands between people just for the right to buy a disc that someone else would otherwise purchase. (CAV laserdiscs were particularly valuable, as were Criterion or Japanese releases.) What a time…
Nowadays, I can find any movie with the search bar. It's all there, somewhere. Even stuff that used to only be available on rare VHS recordings of television broadcasts is on the Internet. It's a Golden Age for fans of obscure media, but a part of me misses the old days when things had to be hunted down.
It used to be that movies had to be chased down from vague title listings, and you would come across all sorts of odd gems during the hunt you otherwise would've never known had existed. It was time-consuming. It was inefficient. It was also fun, and I miss it.
Suncoast was one of my favorite shopping destinations, and it was more than a store, it was an experience. Roaming through the fun merchandise and boxed sets that I dreamed of owning one day had me coming back again and again, even if I didn’t buy something each time. I can’t put a price tag on those memories. When our Suncoast finally closed, a part of my love for movies died that day too.
That really gets at what made Suncoast special. Even when you could not buy anything, it was still worth going in just to browse all the movie stuff you hoped to own someday. We lost one of the better places for people who were into movies.
This you? https://youtu.be/3DTkDZWMRjc?si=bNWH07lvAF9Bkcgj
I would never be brave enough for The Ball.
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa*BARF*AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was always a treat shopping at the Suncoast in the Lehigh Valley Mall in Allentown when I was a kid. My dad always wanted the complete VHS set of Ken Burns' Civil War that was prominently on display there, but I think only ended up getting it years later when it came out on DVD and was much cheaper. Suncoast was MUCH better than the tiny FYE which eventually replaced it.
I can't remember exactly how much Civil War cost, but I remember Baseball was about $150 a few years earlier. Whenever someone bought one of those box sets it was a big deal.
Civil War was around $150, as I recall. Big money back in those days.
Thanks for this piece! My strongest Suncoast memory is of Universal’s release of their 1931 Spanish version of Dracula. Filmed at night on the same sets as the Lugosi version but with an entirely different script, cast, and crew, by the early ‘90s it was largely considered a lost film. Then a print was found (Wikipedia say in NJ) and Universal sent it to stores with the usual Universal Monsters packaging.
I was there with my wife and SO excited to see it. However, at that point we were young parents of a 3-year-old with another on the way and living frugally, so she balked at dropping $14.95 for a copy at that precise moment and we left empty handed.
Only to never see it again. At least not that version. Turned out there were copyright issues to clear up so Universal pulled those copies from shelves. So time and again I’d scour the racks at Suncoast and other retailers, vainly searching for that one again lost film…but to no avail.
It was eventually released on DVD and was all I’d hoped it would be. But to this day, that story is used as justification for my buying something now that she thinks I should wait on. (Even to the level of a nice used car!)
“Remember the Spanish Dracula? Just because it’s here now doesn’t mean it’ll be here tomorrow!”
“Fine, buy it.”
“Remember the Spanish Dracula?” is a very solid household argument. Physical media collecting creates those moments where waiting feels reasonable right up until the thing disappears.
I remember the hub bub around the Spanish version as well and was very into the hype and couldn't wait to see it and as a fan of the original english language version who watched it every year it was a fascinating things to see.
“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.