\u201cThere\u2019s like a warmth to it. The analog kind of crackly, ugly fuzzy quality. It\u2019s just irreplaceable,\u201d said Tish Sparks, a co-owner of Dreamland, an indie film house in Midtown. \u201cSometimes things just look better that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"store\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-4-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Sparky\u2019s Retro Resale in Sacramento sells VHS tapes, vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, cassettes, comics, toys and other retro items. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n
A new video store for Sacramento<\/p>\n
Sacramento will welcome its first video store in almost a decade on Monday, when My Cat\u2019s VHS opens on P and 20th streets in Midtown.<\/p>\n
Tony Swan has been selling tapes for almost 10 years, but this physical location will be his first. The name is an ode to his cat. The new space will allow him to host his streams on Whatnot, an auction site where retro media is popular, and sell a mix of physical media and memorabilia.<\/p>\n
Walking into Swan\u2019s new space, you\u2019ll find wrestling a key theme.<\/p>\n
![\"person\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-15-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Tony Swan, owner of My Cat\u2019s VHS, is opening a store in Midtown Sacramento. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just this kind of passion that I had for old movies and mostly wrestling that just kind of grew into this space we\u2019re in now,\u201d Swan said while wearing his New Day wrestling trio<\/a> T-shirt.<\/p>\n He only collects wrestling tapes and memorabilia for his personal collection, but he loves the hunt for tapes in general. <\/p>\n \t\tSign Up for the Cultural Capital<\/p>\n In your inbox every Thursday, Abridged’s entertainment newsletter from Chris Macias highlights things to do in the Sacramento region.<\/p>\n \u201cI love to find and sell tapes and I love to show people a tape they haven\u2019t seen in years and then give them a good deal on it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The store won\u2019t be limited to just tapes \u2014 there will be DVDs, Blu-Rays, 4Ks, CDs, cassettes and other retro goods. It\u2019s a small space inside of a large American Foursquare style home in Midtown Sacramento, converted into multiple offices. The studio is already filled to the brim with physical media. As Swan organized the store, he looked for a place to hang his \u201cVideo Store\u201c arrow sign in front of the building. Just like the video store of yesteryear, rentals will still be at the forefront. <\/p>\n \u201cAnything in the store will be rentable \u2026 but if you see something, like in this case, you can ask to rent it,\u201d Swan said while pointing to the glass case in front of him holding all his rarer, higher priced tapes.<\/p>\n He pulled out a copy of \u201cChristmas with the Kranks,\u201d a 2004 Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis Christmas comedy. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very late release,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is like a $40 tape online.\u201d<\/p>\n Being in the game since 2017, he\u2019s seen changes in interest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe boom of tapes \u2014 when you have a collection then all of a sudden you see the value of some of these tapes \u2014 you are beyond weirded out,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n His decision to open a physical space was encouraged by the community of supporters that have formed around My Cat\u2019s VHS. Swan said he wouldn\u2019t have the confidence to do it if people weren\u2019t telling him he should.<\/p>\n My Cat\u2019s VHS is at 2011 P St., Suite 10. The store will be open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with availability at night through appointment only<\/a>.<\/p>\n Evidence of a resurgence<\/p>\n The affirmation from Swan\u2019s supporters is backed with evidence from other businesses in town. Guy Rogers, owner of Sparky\u2019s Retro Resale, which sells vintage items in South Land Park, said his VHS sales tell that story. <\/p>\n \u201cSo far this year, I\u2019ve sold as many tapes as I did for the entire year last year,\u201d Rogers said. <\/p>\n You can find a mix of retro goods and physical media like music, movies, comics, T-shirts and toys. <\/p>\n \u201cThings that evoke memories,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cThings people can relate to \u2026 nine times out of 10 someone walks in here will say, \u2018I used to have that!\u2019 Or, \u2018I remember these,\u2019 or, \u2018I always wanted one of these.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most noticeable sections in the sea of nostalgia is the towers and shelves of video tapes in the back of the store. Rogers said they just purchased a load of 1,100 VHS tapes the other week, and \u201cthat\u2019s on top of the already thousands we already had.\u201d <\/p>\n He\u2019s seen that same tape boom as Swan.<\/p>\n \u201cFebruary last year we were starting to sell about 100 tapes a month,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cAnd then as the year went on, we were starting to sell about 200 tapes a month. And now kind of on the regular, it\u2019s 300-plus.\u201d<\/p>\n Sparky\u2019s Retro Resale is at 1184 35th Ave. The store is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. You can follow them on Instagram here<\/a>.<\/p>\n VHS in for vinyl future?<\/p>\n So, is VHS going the way of vinyl with a retro resurgence? Swan says not necessarily. <\/p>\n \u201cThere is still an overwhelming feeling of obsoleteness for VHS,\u201d he said. \u201cVinyl, you can turn up loud and you can get a good quality sound from it. Sometimes VHS on the biggest TV isn\u2019t going to look good, you know?\u201d <\/p>\n Then why do collectors enjoy tapes at all? Of course, some extremely rare videos may not be available anywhere else, but wouldn\u2019t you want to watch a movie on a higher resolution format? Besides the ability to collect, these enthusiasts say watching a movie on VHS is a completely different experience. <\/p>\n Artist and collector<\/a> Meg Chiladas from El Dorado Hills said her renewed love of tapes started when she wanted to watch the original Star Wars trilogy. Specifically, she wanted to watch the unaltered originals that didn\u2019t feature any of the edits or added CGI that all new releases of the films have<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018I need to watch them on the tape,\u2019\u201d Chiladas said. This led to her purchasing the original trilogy on tape and a VCR CRT (cathode ray tube) \u2014 the big box TVs. That was just the beginning of her love of tape collecting.<\/p>\n \u201cI never looked back,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Video store hopefuls<\/p>\n Nostalgia informs much of the newfound enthusiasm for the format. It\u2019s what video store owner hopefuls Chris Emery and Jefferson Miller see as their guiding light. They are in the process of building a collection and looking for a space, hoping to open a location in the fall. <\/p>\n \u201cVery Good Video Store is our passion project of bringing back the throwback video rental store to Sacramento,\u201d Emery said. \u201cWe\u2019re very excited to give communities and families that opportunity that we had growing up of walking the aisles, picking out a movie with your family or friends.\u201d<\/p>\n The team has a variety of ideas like events (including exercise VHS meet-ups) and slumber party rental packs that come with tapes, a VCR and snacks. They said they have been mentored by Matt Renoir of Be Kind Video in Burbank (mentioned in this Los Angeles Times piece on the VHS resurgence<\/a>). The Very Good team sees nostalgia as a guiding light but also wants to offer an antidote to streaming services.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want families to trade five screens for one,\u201d Emery said.<\/p>\n They intend to have a different focus than what is driving a lot of tape sales in other stores. <\/p>\n \u201cOne of our stances is a lot of the rental stores that are popping up around the country tend to lean towards \u201980s horror,\u201d Emery said. \u201cI feel like \u2018tapeheads\u2019 and collectors, that\u2019s a big thing for them. We\u2019re pretty adamant about we\u2019re more about \u2018The Goonies,\u2019 the \u2018Harry and the Hendersons,\u2019 the \u2018Home Alone'(s) \u2014 like the family-oriented movies. Not that we don\u2019t have a special place for the \u201980s horror.\u201d<\/p>\n You can find updates on Very Good Video Store on their Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sold out screenings and a future video store<\/p>\n The Dreamland Cinema in Midtown has had VHS as a part of its programming since shortly after it opened in 2022. Co-owners Sparks and Lauren Hess have collected their own tapes for years. In 2023, they were approached by filmmaker and educator Rob Livings about bringing a series called Trash Tapes to the theater. Sparks and Livings collaborate on the tape selections.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always kind of seek out straight to video or, like, just the worst kind of B movie you can find, and people have a good time with it. It\u2019s one of our most popular events,\u201d Hess said.<\/p>\n They have sold out every screening except for one \u2014 the 2003 film \u201cQuigley.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI guess people draw the line at Gary Busey turning into a dog,\u201d Livings said.<\/p>\n For Sparks and Hess, VHS tapes aren\u2019t just about memory.<\/p>\n \u201cI think some things just play better on VHS,\u201d Hess said. \u201cLike, especially the stuff we do for Trash Tapes. It\u2019s like these movies were made for VHS.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the films featured in Trash Tapes are cheaply shot on video tape with the video store market in mind. If you want fidelity to a filmmaker\u2019s original creation, a VHS tape is as close as you can get.<\/p>\n They hope to add a video store section to their business \u201cwhenever we get our bigger space, but TBD on that,\u201d Sparks said. Hess noted the potential video store would also include new DVDs, Blu-Rays and 4K UHDs from boutique distributors.<\/p>\n Dreamland Cinema is at 1901 P St. Showings can be found online<\/a>.<\/p>\n A filmmaker and serious collector<\/p>\n Livings of Trash Tapes is also a collector with over 1,000 tapes stored in his office at Futures Explored, a film school for adults with disabilities, where he works. <\/p>\n \u201cI had about two-and-a-half-thousand in Australia before I moved here, and that was 2017, and I just gave them away,\u201d he said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t worth anything (at the time). I think back to the Fright Night coffin box<\/a> that\u2019s worth five-or-six-hundred bucks now.\u201d<\/p>\n He stopped collecting for a while until a friend gave him a bag of tapes to go through. He looked through them for nostalgia.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then I was like, I\u2019ll just keep a couple and a couple became a couple hundred,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Livings\u2019 love of VHS extends past just collecting and screening nights. He has released two of his films on the format. <\/p>\n His first release came from Retro Release, a manufacturer of new tapes for both contemporary films and rereleases<\/a>. He also found that someone online was making bootleg VHS copies of his films \u201cChristmas Tapes<\/a>\u201d and \u201cInfrared<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI reached out to him and I was like, I\u2019m not mad. I want you to send me copies of this,\u201d Livings said. \u201cAnd then I was like, can we just make this official? Now we\u2019ve got a deal with him.\u201d <\/p>\n Livings is organizing a VHS swap at Futures Explored in August, but details haven\u2019t been ironed out yet.<\/p>\n VHS is for kids these days, too<\/p>\n There is a definite devotion and excitement to the format burgeoning in the region. Of course, low fidelity memory unites all these collectors \u2014 but it\u2019s not just Generation X, Millennials and older Gen Z people who are looking for tapes.<\/p>\n \u201cI have met young people, very youthful people, that they feel like their generation like missed out, like they were kind of robbed of the physical media,\u201d Chiladas said.<\/p>\n Rogers, of Sparky\u2019s Retro Resale, mentioned many of his customers bring in their children to enjoy tapes with them. It simplifies media and allows them to not get trapped in the endless streaming service options.<\/p>\n Chiladas mentioned that her 3-year-old enjoys watching tapes with her and her husband. She gives her son the autonomy to explore the collection, look at the covers and see what he likes, \u201cwhich is completely different from TV shows streaming online.\u201d<\/p>\n For future generations it may not be a completely foreign concept if these new video stores find success. Before My Cat\u2019s VHS opened, there was only one video store in the entire Sacramento region<\/a> \u2014 a DVD rental spot in Davis. If everything goes right for all parties involved, there may be four by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n Chiladas said her son\u2019s relationship to tapes has extended past just watching. He wanted to play a game with their VHS collection. <\/p>\n \u201cSo, I said, \u2018we can pretend we\u2019re at Blockbuster,\u2019 and he wanted to know what that was,\u201d Chiladas recalled. \u201cSo, we had a whole setup. He was the worker at Blockbuster, and I was renting videos and bringing them back and then he was putting them back on the shelf.\u201d<\/p>\n Blockbuster may be long gone but there could be an opportunity for Chiladas\u2019 son to enjoy the warmth of a video store still. For now, he gets to enjoy tapes at home with his collector family. <\/p>\n Chiladas said his favorite VHS is an As Seen on TV video \u2013 \u201cBig Equipment: Farm Machinery.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0Jordan Mata\u00a0is a digital audience producer for Abridged.<\/p>\n![\"VHS\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-16-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
My Cat\u2019s VHS will sell a variety of VHS tapes and other physical media. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"sign\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-18-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
My Cat\u2019s VHS will sell a variety of VHS tapes and other physical media. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"person\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-2-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Guy Rogers is the owner of Sparky\u2019s Retro Resale on 35th Avenue in Sacramento. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"figurine\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-3-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Sparky\u2019s Retro Resale in Sacramento sells VHS tapes, vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, cassettes, comics, toys and other retro items. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"store](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-10-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Sparky\u2019s Retro Resale is located at 1184 35th Ave. in Sacramento. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"people\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-12-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Jefferson Miller, left, and Chris Emery of Very Good Video Store are preparing to open their store in fall 2026. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"VHS\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-13-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Very Good Video Store will sell VHS tapes and VHS players. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"VHS\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/VHS-14-1024x683.jpg.webp\")
Very Good Video Store plans to sell a variety of physical media. (Shelley Ho)<\/p>\n![\"VHS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_4543-768x1024.jpg.webp\")
VHS tape of Big Equipment Farm Machinery from 1994. (Courtesy of Meg Chiladas)<\/p>\n