The story of Vulcan Video is long, winding, and weird. For more than 30 years, the revered video rental shop has supplied local film lovers with movies you just can’t find anywhere else, be it Criterion Collection classics or forgotten direct-to-video treasures.

Long-time Vulcan members might remember visiting the stores on 29th Street, North Loop, Lake Creek, or Elizabeth Street. Like many legacy Austin businesses, it’s been pushed further and further from the center of the city. In the summer of 2016, the company made its latest move to a shopping center on Russell Drive near Ben White Boulevard and South Lamar. Despite all the upheaval, the stock is as diverse as ever, and the clerks are still quick with recommendations that could never be formulated by an algorithm.

But no matter how revered the store is with dyed-in-the-wool movie nerds, it’s tough to make a profit renting out DVDs in the year 2019. Many regulars either aren’t willing to make the extended trek south, or, like most consumers, they’ve been lured into the convenience of streaming. Having a DVD player, let alone a VCR, is increasingly rare these days. This spring, the shop’s finances looked so grim that general manager Jacob Knight took action and started a GoFundMe campaign to combat escalating rent and utility prices.

Fans took note, chipping in nearly $30,000 in two months. The fundraiser served as a wake-up call to both film fans and members of the Vulcan team, who realized they needed to take a more modernized approach to grassroots marketing. Word-of-mouth and tradition just didn’t cut it anymore. As part of its evolution, the shop began a weekend film screening series called Taps and Tapes, where craft beer (donated by Austin Beerworks and other local breweries) is paired with rare VHS tapes and 16mm prints projected onto the side of the building. It’s collaborated with local artists to commission limited-run Vulcan T-shirts and enamel pins that are available in-store and on the company’s newly minted digital shop. And like any contemporary mom-and-pop worth its salt, Vulcan has embraced Instagram and Twitter to reconnect with old friends, while attracting new customers smitten with their idiosyncratic social media stylings.

To look back on the shop’s history and celebrate its legacy, we asked a group of current and former employees, regular customers, and Austin film luminaries to share what Vulcan Video means to them. Read on to learn about the shop’s origins, just how vast its inventory really is, and what lies in store for the Austin institution.

The Players

Diane Donnell

owner

Jacob Knight

general manager, 2013-present

Randi Adams

marketing manager, May 2019-present

Rockie Juarez

video clerk at the 29th St. and North Loop stores, 2006-2016

Ben Martin

video clerk at 29th St., North Loop, and Elizabeth St. stores, 2012-2017

Janet Vincent

video clerk at Russell St. store, 2018-2019

Neil Cook

video clerk at every location, 1996-present

Tim League

Alamo Drafthouse founder

Lars Nilsen

Austin Film Society programmer

Matt Shiverdecker

Austin American-Statesman film critic

Jordan Troublefield​

long-time customer

The Birth of a God

Diane Donnell, owner: I grew up in Kilgore, a little town in East Texas. I saw two movies a week. That’s what we did: It was either high school athletics or the movie theater. That’s where you met your friends. You just walked in and never worried about what time the movie started.

Jacob Knight, general manager: The mid-’80s were when a lot of independent tape shops cropped up because you were at the peak of the VCR. All of a sudden, watching movies at home became a part of everyone’s lives.

Donnell: There was a fellow selling posters at the bottom of 12th and Lamar in a store called Movie Art. This would’ve been in ’85. As a favor to his customers, he would have these unusual movies. I bought them out, and we moved to 29th Street where we had to get a different name. My husband was one of the owners of Vulcan Gas Company. I liked the alliteration and recognition of Vulcan Video. But it didn’t have one single thing to do with Star Trek—I hated that!

Knight: Video stores were a booming business, enough that it could support multiple locations in one city.

Donnell: When I first got into it, I thought I could do this for about seven years. Evidently, it caught my interest.

Knight: You had the 29th Street shop, the North Loop store, and the Elizabeth Street store. Elizabeth Street had been open for nearly 20 years by the time I joined up in 2013.

Rockie Juarez, video clerk: I’ve worked there on and off for about 10 years. Since Austin is a crazy film town, there were a lot of kids coming in looking for rare-ass films at the West 29th street location.

Ben Martin, video clerk: The North Loop store had that kind of Austin “slacker vibe,” for lack of a better term.

This Ain’t No Blockbuster

Donnell: My original intention was to get movies that I’d actually like to see. I focused on things like the French New Wave, and a lot of noir stuff from the ’30s and ’40s.

Knight: Our big thing is archival films. In fact, we buy less new releases these days than ever before. At this point, let’s face it, the majority of people that want to watch [Jordan Peele’s] Us are going to pay the $3.99 on Amazon to rent it.

Juarez: We have a ton of subcategories. Like, Godzilla has his own section.

Janet Vincent, video clerk: There’s an entire section of Troma movies (a low budget horror studio founded in the ’70s). James Gunn used to direct for Troma, and it’s so cool to see what he did before Guardians of the Galaxy. There are just so many random gems.

Matt Shiverdecker, Austin American-Statesman film critic: It’s easy for me to get lost in the director’s wall. Last year I went on a tear through the Douglas Sirk section. Many of his films are only available on DVD; you pretty much can’t track them down digitally or on streaming sites.

Martin: In a way, being in the store is like seeing the entirety of film history laid out in front of you.

Tim League, Alamo Drafthouse founder: I loved two things about Vulcan South [on Elizabeth Street]. The first was the deep, deep sections. The director’s wall and the Asian action/kung fu selection. I had a decent understanding of movies from Hong Kong, but Vulcan really furthered my education. And they only hire amazing staff members who have an encyclopedic knowledge of film.

A Community of Film Scholars

Martin: You know, it really felt like what you had imagined: being the cool kid working at the video store. Except none of us were kids. Our crew was all in their late twenties, so it was a little Peter Pan syndrome–ish.

Neil Cook, video clerk: I started in ’96. I think the minimum wage was $4.75, and Vulcan started at $6.50, so it was cool in that regard. My deal was that every time I started a shift, I’d play Big Trouble in Little China. Everybody got so sick of it.

Knight: You never got paid much, but the perks were that you got to hang out and talk about movies. Beyond a place where you rent videos or DVDs, this is very much a community hub. For a lot of folks, it’s a social outlet. It’s part of their day. We have a lot of old timers who come in and just like talking to you about the movies they’ve watched recently.

Martin: We have the most relaxed, least hurried customer base. We would have people bring bottles of wine or a six-pack and just hang out at the counter for hours.

Knight: When we were on North Loop, we had a guy named Dean who you’d see every weekend. He’d bring a bottle of wine, return one or two film noir selections from the previous week. He could name, in chronological order, an actor’s entire filmography.

Lars Nilsen, Austin Film Society programmer: If you’re renting something and one of them says: “Oh cool, you’re renting that!” it’s one of the greatest compliments. You really felt like you hit a home run.

Jordan Troublefield, long-time customer: Some people have baristas at coffee shops that they frequent. I have the guys at Vulcan Video.

Nilsen: For me, Vulcan Video was my film school. And I realize what a dreadful, horrible cliché that’s become over the past few years. But it’s true. I don’t just mean it was a library; it was a community of scholars.

Troublefield: With assistance from them, I’ve been able to find those unsung masterworks. And we always talk about them afterwards. It’s almost like a little book club every time I go in.

Juarez: I’m a librarian; that’s kind of my bag. I like going back there and digging up treasures for people. My favorite thing is the rapport you build with regulars—the ones that come in and take your recommendations seriously.

League: If you are a regular and people get to know your taste, a good video store clerk can guide you on a wild and unexpected journey.

Cook: It’s about human communication on some level. It’s about people coming in without knowing exactly what they want, and the clerk helping them. It’s like being a counselor.

Stream or Be Streamed

Knight: A lot of people blame streaming for the death of video stores, but that was just the next evolution of what was putting video stores out of business. The corporate monster is always coming out with a new boogie man.

Randi Adams, marketing manager: Some people try to pit us versus streaming, but you can take advantage of both. I have like five different streaming accounts, but some things you can only get from Vulcan. There’s no way everything is online; it’s just not.

Donnell: I like Netflix too, but sometimes I’ll get a fixation with a director and want to see everything they made. Rather than fishing around online, at Vulcan I can just find it. It’s better for when you really want to watch something specific, and not because you’re bored or lazy and simply want to be entertained.

Vincent: At Vulcan, sometimes you make new friends. You can’t do that when you’re on Netflix. It brings the human aspect back.

Martin: When I just go on Netflix, it leads me to the same old titles. It’s not set up to seek; it’s set up for you to settle.

Troublefield: If there’s a thousand movies in front of me at the flip of a button, do I know that this is the thing I really want to watch? While you’re looking around for 20 minutes, you could be one act into a film.

League: Video stores are archives—deep community libraries of film culture and history. You can find a lot of “content” online, but so much of what a store like Vulcan stocks is not available anywhere else.

Cook: There are films from other countries that you should experience that you can’t get anywhere else. At this point, we’ve been in business so long, we’ve accumulated all these things that have been discontinued.

Nilsen: Vulcan Video hits pause on the obsolescence cutoff. If you’re curious enough to still have a physical media machine hooked up to your television, you have the ability to access this whole other world.

Vincent: When the internet goes out, what are people going to do? You’ve gotta have a backup plan.

Vulcan, Reborn

Knight: I did the GoFundMe because I came in on two straight Mondays and we didn’t break $200. I thought: We’re f*cked. I didn’t know what to do. Nothing was working. So, why not just appeal to the community. It was like putting up a bat signal saying: we’re still here, we still want you guys to come in.

Juarez: Recently we did hit hard times. We launched a GoFundMe, and everyone supported us like crazy. The film nuts always shock me. Even people who’d moved away from Austin gave us up to $200 when they heard the news. They really care about the video store experience.

Adams: I called Jacob [Knight] after I saw the GoFundMe page and set up a meeting. I asked who was in charge of marketing and events planning and he acknowledged that nobody was. So, basically I came in with a pitch and he hired me on the spot.

Neil Cook, video clerk: I don’t think you can be viable just being a video store at this point. You have to have a space that’s communal. You’ve got to have things like a bar or a screening room.

Adams: The only draw can’t be movie rentals, because it’s 2019. You need something more to get people in the door. You should sell merch. You should have day parties and movie nights. We really need to make Vulcan a destination where you go and can hang out and talk about movies with like-minded people.

Knight: We’ve started doing the screenings now every Saturday. It’s called Taps and Tapes, where we get a keg of beer donated from local breweries and we show a rare movie that never made the jump to streaming, such as Bloodlust or Charles Bronson’s Death Hunt.

Adams: It’s free beer and movies. I mean, come on!

Live Long and Prosper

Martin: Does Austin need Vulcan? It de-pends on what Austin wants to be at this point. If we collectively all needed it, and were active participants in that community, then it wouldn’t go away.

Vincent: It’s part of what makes Austin so Austin, because it’s such a time capsule. And not just of movies, but the people who come in as well. They have such great stories to tell.

Shiverdecker: Much like all the excellent record stores around town, Vulcan offers a communal gathering space for people who value art, pop culture, and everything in between.

Troublefield: If there’s a world without Vulcan, yeah, life will go on. But I honestly can’t imagine what my film diet will look like without them.

Juarez: Even if Vulcan Video does die, we are going to go out swinging. We’re always going to fight. If it happens, we’re going to go out like champs.

Donnell: It’s been a great ride. I don’t have any regrets. Not at all.