Eastwood rental shop 'to bring back spirit of Blockbuster'

Gavin Elliot is on a mission to prove traditional “physical” media like vinyl, VHS and DVDs is not dead and is so convinced, he has opened his Retro Rewinders shop in Rayleigh Road, Eastwood.

Retro Rewinders offers a hand-picked selection of rental films, with Gavin donating much of the stock from his personal collection and ordering old films unavailable on streaming services.

Alongside rental films, Gavin is also offering people the chance to play on retro games consoles and believes his shop has enough of a “unique niche” to become a success.

Unique - Gavin Elliot with councillor Paul Collins (Image: Paul Collins)

He said: “What I want to evoke is a Blockbuster, I want the store to have a nice atmosphere where people can come in and ask for recommendations, we have a lounge space and I want people to feel they can come in and ask a movie guru for something.

“That experience is something that has been lost today, often with modern stores you assume they don’t have the knowledge, or they tend to have a cold atmosphere.

“I have a good film knowledge and I can always recommend and get things ordered it, I want this store to be for the community and I believe I can persuade people of the community aspect and get them away form ordering online and back onto the High Street.”

Gavin said Retro Rewinders also offers an hour of playtime on a vast selection of consoles, including the PlayStation One, Nintendo Gamecube, Sega Dreamcast and more with a day of unlimited usage going for £10.

“In the future, this place will be a social hub, with board games and hopefully even movie nights on a projector,” he added.

“People will be able to vote for a console they might want to use the following week and we will get out, say the GameCube and run events on it for everyone to enjoy.”

Paul Collins, Lib Dem councillor for Eastwood and Lib Dem leader visited the shop this and praised Gavin for opening the new shop.