Independents

Best Sparks family-owned video rental place

Silver Screen Video
5245 Vista Blvd.
Sparks
354-2573

Like the mechanical great white shark in the movie Jaws (1975), video rental chains (Blockbuster & Co.) eviscerate homegrown competition that’s barely keeping afloat in shark-infested waters. Just when it seemed unsafe for any independently owned movie rental place to go back in the water, some folks in Sparks unfurled a floatation device and hit the open sea. Silver Screen Video opened a few months ago on Vista and Los Altos. A neighbor discovered the family-owned biz and recommended it. It’s in the same shopping complex as a few non-chain eateries: Mocha Joe’s, Shy Simon’s Pizza and Aspen Glen Bar & Grill. Silver Screen isn’t just a tiny corner rental joint with a few dozen titles. The owners went all out—rows and rows of new releases. Stacks of classics, comedies, dramas, sci-fi. Friendly faces behind the counter. The new owner repeated what so many others say: “People are getting tired of Blockbuster.”

Best Reno locally owned video rental palace

Video Maniacs
900 W. Fifth St., 786-3444
3340 S. McCarran Blvd., 827-4758

There was a collective sigh of relief when Video Maniacs started doing business again in northern Nevada. The chains like Hollywood and Blockbuster were censoring material out of movies to make them fit some kind of Wal-Mart take on what America should be viewing. Video Maniacs also offered something that was unheard of in video chains, salespeople who not only knew something about movies, but also had a little training in how to wait on customers. And if uncensored movies and knowledgeable employees weren’t enough, the store offered a full-blown adult section for those sophisticated adults who aren’t afraid of running into their sixth-grade teacher at the counter.

Best place to get ripped apart by cute, cuddly things

Little Wilderness
3030 Mill St.
323-6996

Ferrets, rats, sugar gliders, oh my. Cobras, tarantulas, lizards, oh my. Hedgehogs, chinchillas, prairie dogs, oh my. That’s right, watch out for the prairie dogs at Little Wilderness. Stick your hand inside the plastic walls of its pen, and one’s likely to embed its rabbit-like teeth into your I-want-to-pet-the-sweet-little-thing forefinger. Believe it or not, the prairie dogs have leaped toward more than one unsuspecting customer at this locally owned pet shop, even though there are customer-friendly warning signs. Little Wilderness probably has the most diverse array of potential pets in town. The chinchillas are as soft and precious as the ones fur coats are made of, and some of the tarantulas are the exotic species that live in trees and attack passing birds (like the arboreal Antilles pinktoe)—a great gift for the girlfriend who has everything, except for her own songbird snatcher. The staff at Little Wilderness is friendly, too, and they know more fascinating facts about amphibious life forms than a hedgehog has quills. Get yourself a cobra and its dinner today—think of it as one-stop, circle-of-life shopping.