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BOUNTIFUL — In a world where most video rental stores are abandoned and look like sets from an episode of "The Walking Dead," one store in Utah is still going strong.
Lee and Lona Earl have been married for 51 years and do nearly everything together. They jumped into the home video rental business as a pair, back in the stone age of home entertainment.
"We started in 1983," Lona Earl said. "A friend of ours offered a franchise, and it was called 'Adventureland Video.'"
Most people didn't own a VCR; some had never even heard of one.
"We would take a VCR, take it to somebody's house with a couple of movies and say, 'Would you like to have this just for the weekend, or for the night?'" she said.
A few years later they renamed the store Top Hat Video. Not only did the name of the store change, its location did too. After several moves, they are in their permanent home at 521 W. 2600 South in Bountiful.
It's a business that's changed many times, but they're still here. "Business is staying consistent and doing very well," she said.
They admit they've had some concerns, but it comes with the territory. Theirs is a business that's constantly been in flux.
"Beta/VHS to just VHS was difficult," Lee Earl said, thinking of their first transition. "VHS to DVDs, and people got a little freaked about that."
This store's fended off some heavyweight contenders.
"Blockbuster comes in, and then Hollywood comes in," she said.
"We could never bring in as many as they brought in," he said.
"They would have like a hundred copies of one movie and being an independent, we couldn't afford that," Lona Earl said.
He says he'll never forget the day he heard Blockbuster was going out of business.
"I was here at work," he said. "We heard that they were going out, I was kind of shocked. I didn't believe that at first. I thought, 'Well, they'd close down stores around us.' I didn't think they were really all going."
"Those are always scary times," she said. "To think, 'Well, how long will it stay?'"
"We like the competition," he said. "The competition makes us stronger."
Even among independent stores, Top Hat Video, his is one of the last ones standing.
"So many of our friends that are just gone," he said. "We're a part of the Video Buyers Group, which is independents, and a lot of them are gone."
In a time where they compete with the Internet and rental machines at gas stations, how is Top Hat still here?
"There's so many chances to download them or stream them, you wonder what makes them stay so faithful," Lee Earl said.
They credit a wide selection, knowledgeable employees and long rental periods; but most of all, they believe they offer a browsing experience you can't really find anywhere else.
"They like to pick it up and look at it and read it," Lona said.
"Be able to come in and hold the product and see," Lee Earl said. "Sometimes, looking at it online, you're not going to be able to see what you really want."
They see a future ahead for their business; 4K Ultra HD TVs are now on store shelves, and though there's a limited supply of 4K movies available right now, Lee Earl says they're difficult to stream online, and the movies they have available are renting well.
"That's helping us," Lee said. "People are saying, 'That's exciting!'"
"We've just weathered the storm every time," Lona Earl said. "Just have that attitude about us that we're gonna stay."
