Pepe’s Video Store

The friendliest most helpful staff around. An unusual place with the best LOTTERY Selection in the whole area. In fact they even have special Lottery promotions and give a ways from time to time. Yesterday, 5÷1÷15, was an exciting and fun Spin the Wheel promotion with the Lottery giving away scratchers, draw games, and premium items you don’t see often. They are the first to have new games and always more games than other local stores. Just the Best!

The staff is extremely accomodating and friendly! I love Pepe’s, where I bought my phone! When I stopped by last, they have some new amazing stone pieces that they are now selling. Thank you Pepe’s!

Tolerance: The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
Look away if you do not love the word above. I bought my first Money Gram today after a botched effort to send cash via western union from Von’s in Pasadena. The machine was down. What’s new from this overpriced creepy supermarket? «Do you know of anywhere else» says I to the manager. (insert silence)
I’m winging it. Orange Grove is a street where I seem to remember a 7 – 11 being. Bingo! For some reason the pretty Latin girl at the register is helpful and sympathetic as she goes out of her way to help us out. We are given directions to Pepe’s with warm smiles sent our way and we are off with gratitude.
I park on the street and find myself in a crowded colorful video rental store. Latin flags are everywhere. Movies, cell phones, phone cards, check cashing and bill paying services are all available and sold by bilingual staff. These guys feel me when I send my cash to Guatemala via money gram. (On sale today only $ 5 for every fifty sent!) My eyes are met with total and unconditional support when I say one word: «Refugees.» I didn’t need to say anything else. I learn that the cashier’s sister is in Africa teaching and that his extra cash makes it’s way to her. His sister is beautiful like the children standing next to her in the photograph that she is trying to save.
It’s easy to take our freedom for granted, to close our eyes to anyone different, to forget that we are in this shit together, we are cut from the same cloth, we breathe the same air and we bleed the same color, no matter where we came from. I am not just part of a country, state or city and neither are you, we are part of the human race and we are not winning this race when so many of us are losing.
I bought another day for a family far away from freedom, phone cards for my friends to call me from and stock in my ideals that are not just talk. Pepe’s is a place effervescent with compassion and the epitome of tolerance. The definition of tolerance is one that I will never really know and never master but my life will be well spent trying to.

I go back almost 20 years with these guys. I used to live a block and half from them, on the same street.
Pepes’s was how I was able to build on my film knowledge. Hell, when I turned 18, Pepe’s was the place I got my porn rentals from!
By the time DVD came into the picture, we had already moved to the NW area of the city.
The store is right by where I get my haircut, and they’ve gotten somewhat bigger, and offer more than just flick. You can buy cell phones, phone cards, there’s an ATM, etc…
Wow, what memories, I used to rent flicks on a daily basis; it was that cool.
I’d give them a perfect 5 star, but I have not been here in quite a while, so I must be objective.