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Green Apple breathes new life into Sunset District’s Le Video; will be co-tenant


Photo by Le Video

If you think bookstores have been feeling the squeeze from the digital publishing world, imagine the challenges that a video store faces in today’s culture of on-demand movies and television shows. While some boomers fondly remember the days of browsing rows of VHS tapes and DVDs for movie night, it’s an activity that is hard to relive in San Francisco – there’s only a handful left.

Despite this, the Sunset District’s Le Video has managed to stay in business, attracting about 120 customers on a weekday. But that’s not enough to keep it afloat, and Le Video founder Catherine Tchen was facing an imminent closure earlier this year after spending nearly $1 million of her own funds in the last four years to keep the doors open at the 34 year old video store.

After posting a Facebook message in March about her financial predicament and impending closure, Tchen received a lifeline from another longtime, neighborhood business – Green Apple Books.

Beginning August 1, Green Apple will open its second location in the ground floor of Le Video, located on 9th Avenue between Lincoln and Irving in the inner Sunset District. Le Video will move its inventory of 100,000 video titles to the second floor.

In addition to Green Apple taking over some of the rent payment, Le Video should benefit from the increased traffic from book shoppers. Green Apple attracts roughly 500 customers daily to its Clement Street location; its second location on 9th Avenue will be roughly one third the size.

Le Video’s not completely out of the red yet. Tchen anticipates that she will need to raise an additional $30,000 to $60,000 simply to prep the new space and make the move. To help, an indiegogo campaign underway.

Green Apple was recently named Bookstore of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly, and now they can add small business savior to their list of accolades. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy to see Green Apple expand across the park, and help another business at the same time.

Sarah B.

[via SFGate]

10 Comments

  1. That’s so AWESOME!!! Wonder if the 2nd Green Apple location will have a kitty like ‘Louie’ who used to live at the Clement st. annex many years ago….

  2. Super exciting. Really looking forward to, no pun intended, this new chapter for Le Video and Green Apple Books.

  3. This is such great news. I used to work at a local video store that had to close due to increased costs and a decrease in customers from digital competition. I always said LeVideo would be the last store standing. Glad to hear I haven’t been proved wrong yet 🙂

  4. Thanks for posting about our good news (I’m the buyer over at Le Video). We are pretty excited about sharing the space with our bookstore equivalent.
    I feel it is my duty as co-spokeperson for the store to say that it is closer to 100k items we have to move upstairs. The 20k number was for items that may need digitizing in our next phase. (VHS).

  5. Wonder if there’d be room for a LeVideo outpost on Clement Street? (Though moving 100,000 books from Green Apple’s store or storage would hardly make a dent in their space!). With the Museum Concourse closed off except to MUNI, it’s a tiny bit tough to zip on over to 9th Ave. from the mid-Richmond.

  6. Wonderful news! Always love visiting Le Video. Here’s hoping GreenApple will breath much needed foot traffic and paying customers to Le Video. It is so sad to learn so many of these neighborhood stores have closed down. Good luck!

  7. This is a really great thing for both neighborhoods. There used to be LOTS of used book stores around the 9th and Judah area; they’re all gone now.

    Perhaps Green Apple can use this opportunity to juice up its own video space a couple doors west of the big bookstore on Clement.

    Good luck, bravo, and mazel tov!

  8. I’d like to think that a culture can be measured by the quality of its bookstores. Go Green Apple

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