49’er Video,
606 W. Covell Blvd.
Blockbuster Video,
303 F St. and 1411 W. Covell Blvd.
Dimple Records,
212 F St.
For the third consecutive year, 49’er Video received the best video store award in Davis.
49’er carries one of the largest selections of videos in Northern California, said owner John Merchant.
“We have over 30,000 titles for rent in our store,” he said. “We are really a store that focuses on people who are looking for a wide variety of movies. For example, we have 4,000 foreign films in our store and we have probably close to 1,000 classic movies.”
Compared to bigger corporate video rental stores, 49’er is a small, private owned store.
“We are not a giant corporation, so we’re extremely active in the community,” Merchant said. “We support a lot of local organizations with gift certificates and free rentals and through the years we probably have contributed to between 300 and 400 local organizations.”
All the employees are UC Davis students, Merchant said.
“We have a whole staff of people who work here who really love and understand movies,” he added.
Second and third place was awarded to Blockbuster and Dimple Records, respectively.
Dimple buys, sells and trades videos, which can be especially convenient for busy college students who have problems returning rentals on time, said co-owner Dilyn Radakovitz.
“It’s easier than renting because you pay for the new or used videos and the customer can bring it back and sell it. They can keep [the video] as long as they want and then come in and sell it back,” Radakovitz said.
– Janet Hung
