Blockbuster Video, as a concept, is not just a memory in Kitsilano.
While the multi-national video rental store is long gone (except for a single location in Bend, Oregon), reminders of the massive chain remain across North America.
One (small) artifact was revealed sometime in the last couple of years in Kitsilano, when the Sleep Country at Broadway and Blenheim Street (3289 W Broadway) removed a parking sign behind the store.
Under that sign, slightly damaged by glue and time, was a classic blue and yellow Blockbuster Video Sign, advertising customer parking. It's still there.
The last Blockbuster in Canada closed in 2011
It may be hard for some millennials and Gen X-ers to hear, but Blockbuster Video went out of business in Canada in 2011; it's been more than 12 years since the last one locked its doors.
The Kitsilano Blockbuster Video store closed in 2011 when the company went under. It had opened in 1991, according to archived newspapers.
It's unclear when the sign once again saw the sunlight; Google Maps; street view shows it was visible again in 2023, after being covered up for around a decade.
There remains plenty of nostalgia for the brand in Canada. In Ontario, there was a petition in 2020 to save a Blockbuster location in Owen Sound that was essentially abandoned and never redeveloped into anything new. It appears to still stand and is jokingly listed as a historic site on Google Maps with many folks still making a trip to try the locked doors.
Closer to home, a Metro Vancouver high school student created a free Blockbuster in the style of a little roadside library.
And there was also a brief return of a store in Vancouver, though it was actually a set for a Netflix show.
