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Caswell Hill will welcome its first video movie rental store in many years when Christ Church Anglican converts its basement theology library into a video movie store and opens Nutflakes later this winter.

If you miss the experience of going to your local video store and hunting through piles of movies, looking for that ‘jewel in the haystack’, Nutflakes is for you. Instead of having some team of content scientists from Silicon Valley vetting your options ahead of time, Nutflakes follows an entirely different tack: residents of Saskatoon are invited to donate their videocassette (VHS and Beta), laser disc, and DVD titles to create a gumbo of entirely locally-sourced viewing options. Already, we have received hundreds of movies from just a small handful of generous benefactors.

Once the Nutflakes stock is of a sufficient size, we open our doors three days a week, and one customer/day. Patrons must pre-book their Nutflakes appointment at least one week in advance by emailing nutflakesyxe@gmail.com. Once you have received your ‘golden ticket’ of invitation, you will have a one hour window on your appointed day to choose up to seven movies for one week. Nutflakes hours are staggered to allow for at least 24 hours between patrons and thereby prevent the transfer of tactile Covid -19 infection.

Membership and rentals are free, but patrons are invited to make a contribution to the Christ Church hunger relief fund, raising money to put food on the tables of food insecure households in Saskatoon through CHEP Saskatoon’s Pay It Forward program.

Good question. We understand that while many people having extra time on their hands during Covid, most of us have even more stressors in our lives than ever before (like washing those hands after we’ve been handling all that extra time)…so the last thing any of us needs to worry about is rewinding that stack of Nutflakes videos. As well, and in order to remain competitive with streaming services, we make it clear that rewinding is not expected — our Nutflakes staff is trained and ready to rewind all your returned movies for you, no questions asked. Hence, the ‘Be Kind, Rewind’ stickers are getting peeled off and replaced with new ‘Nevermind the Rewind’ ones (with a nod to Nirvana).

Fair enough. To celebrate the opening of Nutflakes, we’re taking applications from households to spend a Friday in the church basement, in our converted overnight slumber party suite, adjacent to the Nutflakes library. One lucky household (bubble members only, please) gets 24 hours of access to Nutflakes and the party room, where you can stretch out on the hide-a-bed and watch your favourite movies on the church’s old school giant screen TV (not flatscreen; this one’s roughly the size of a Maytag freezer). Kitchen and washroom access included, plus courtesy bags of microwave popcorn … and like everything at Nutflakes, it is entirely free, with a contribution to the hunger program welcome.

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