Video Nook

Michael offered fast, friendly service for helping me choose my iPhone and iPad2 Bluetooth keyboards. Will definitely come again, since he can fix phones, too — important for saving money!

Honest place. Very knowledgeable professional repair guy. I dropped my phone and almost tried to fix it myself, you know, like good old days of Nokia phone which you could take apart no problem. Glad I didn’t. Long story short. If it is a challenge, he’d tell you, but he’ll get it done. For a reasonable price. He’s my new phone doctor.

First of all, this is the LAST video rental store in SF… and it’s charm and movie selection is top notch.
Unfortunately, that’s not the reason why I went there.
I, like many, mistakenly dropped my iPhone and it shattered… I thought I was $ 500 out for a new phone. Then I found Michael at Video Nook… he was a United Airlines engineer for 18 years and then wanted to give up the intense job for a life of happiness, and stumbled upon a great opportunity to fix people’s shattered phones (in 20 minutes or less I might add!!) AND be a wonderful conversationalist while doing it and maintaining his video rental business, with a smile.
I would HANDS DOWN recommend Michael. for his phone repairs and movie selections, and convenience…
Thank you Michael!
Guryan

I love this place… a local neighborhood store!
in these days of easy technology to download any movie you want over the net, the Video Nook still maintains the feel of a classic video store that makes you want to rent movies directly as it used to be. The owner has stocked the place with any movie you could hope to want, and is very capable at recommending movies for you as needed.
He also has an iPhone repair side business that I am very impressed with. I overheard him telling a customer (i) that if he can’t repair the phone, then he would not charge her; and (ii) he would guarantee the repair work for some period of time. This is a man who knows how to run a business.
If you value neighborhood businesses that operate with the integrity and ethics that made this country great, then rent your movies from Video Nook (and take your iPhone there as needed).
[Note that I am just a regular customer, and am not glorifying this store because of any affiliation.]

Video Crook is what I like to call this place.
Ridiculously overpriced and not very friendly staff. You are better off going to Le Video or use Netflix.
I used to love it here, but had a horrible experience with a scratched DVD and not only did they not apologize but they didn’t just exchange the DVD they said I had to rent a new one. Save your money.

Terrible experience here.
They gave me a damaged DVD and tried to blame it on me.
I normally like to go to small locally owned businesses, but I will not go back here.

I love this iPhone repair guy!!! He gave me the most sound and honest advice on how to fix my phone. I went to another place before going to him and got nothing.
This man is a genius! Go here!

I like supporting this neighborhood store — the staff has always been friendly to me, and the store has good selection… and always nice to get the 11^th rental free.

This review is for iPhone repair.
My phone’s sim card stopped registering reliably a few days ago. If I pushed on the tray, it would connect, but moving the phone around or setting it down firmly would shake the sim and then my phone would display «no sim card» or sometimes «invalid sim card».
I went to the Apple Store in SF, and they confirmed the tray didn’t seem to be making a good connection and there was a little corrosion which might be making the already poor connection fail. They tried a different tray, but said a new tray made the connection even worse. They didn’t say they could do anything about the fit of my tray. They didn’t offer to clean off the corrosion. They quoted me $ 199 for a new phone.
I called Video Nook and they confirmed I could come over today before close or during certain hours tomorrow. When I walked in 15 minutes later, he asked me a couple questions about the problem and then opened up the case. He confirmed the tray seemed slightly out of alignment and a little corrosion was making it worse. He bent the tray cage slightly, brushed the corrosion away with a toothbrush, and now…
My phone works!
It took him 10 minutes and cost me $ 10.
Too bad the Apple Store can’t provide that kind of service.

I had a recent experience at Video Nook — not for video rental (sadly, I think it’s well and truly time to finish that business) but for iPhone repair. Wisely, Video Nook have started to diversify away from the video rental business, and clearly there’s a great demand for iPhone repair. (There’s a great demand for iPhones and people — like myself — inevitably manage to smash them.)
I successfully destroyed my iPhone by fiddling around with the SIM card adapter and shorting out a few of the crucial. microscopic connectors. Then, stupidly, I tried to be the techie & fix the problem — bad move: I managed to make things a lot worse, and came to the realization that I needed a professional to fix things.
I had noticed the «iPhone repairs» sign at the Video Nook, so I stopped by. The iPhone tech, Michael, wasnt there, so I gave my particulars to the video store guy & left. Michael called me soon after — I dropped off my phone, and he popped it open on the spot. No easy solution — I had well & truly screwed it. However, he offered to hold on to the phone, and to try a few more things.
There is no good outcome here — Michael couldnt fix the phone. (Because, simply, I had trashed it!) However, I feel I must give a glowing recommendation for him, for his willingness to try everything, his good humor (and, far as I can tell, the very reasonable prices). Needless to say, he charged me nothing for his labor. A bad outcome — but a very good experience. Next time I have a busted iPhone (hopefully, not anytime soon) I’ll go straight to Michael — and resist the urge to be iPhone tech guy…

NOTE: this review is for an iPhone repair, NOT the video store
You MUST come to Michael for an iPhone repair!!! I had a cracked iPhone 3GS LCD display, dropped the phone in the toilet and thankfully it still worked AND THEN dropped it on the floor and the whole glass protector screen shattered.
Took my phone to Michael, in and out in 5 minutes $ 105 for BOTH parts (LCD and glass cover). That’s HALF the price of taking it to apple to get it repaired. I live in the mission and I couldn’t even find a repair for that cheap. He even checked everything to make sure the phone and the touch display were all working well and gave me a receipt and told me to come in if something went wrong with the screens, no questions asked.
Amazing.
I don’t know about the video store itself but definitely come to him for an iphone repair! He’s super nice.

Video Crook: Home of the rudest video clerk in universe!
Two out of three visits resulted in unprovoked hostile exchanges and on my most recent visit two out of three customers in the store left dissatisfied. One seemingly kind older gentleman was severely reprimanded after letting the clerk know that he couldn’t get the DVD to play and I was barked at after asking about their (questionable) credit card policies.
I won’t rehearse the heinous late fee practices other reviewers have mentioned, which have stung me as well. To the point, good selection or not, I will not be back: customers are treated poorly and you leave feeling robbed.

Great for a neighborhood video store. Not a Blockbuster selection, but they have the good stuff usually. The guys have been nothing but friendly to me – never had a rude experience with them. I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit, but they’re great for a movie when I’m in a pinch, and have been flexible by a couple hours for my late returns.

It’s small but has a good selection for a small neighborhood video store. Of course you can’t keep the movie long but they do have a decent selection of foreign films, new films and they have a room for adult videos only. Plus they sell candy and popcorn, kinda what you would expect for your mom and pop video store.
I remember they had a frequent renter program where you get a free rental after 10 rentals or something like that. The staff has always been pleasant and I’ve never had any late fee issues. I wouldn’t go out of my way to come here but it’s fine if you live in the neighborhood and it’s closer to you than Into Video (Into Video is better).

Though most of my movies come from Netflix at this point, I still occasionally visit this place when I need a quick fix that can’t wait a day or two.
Their DVD selection is reasonable and the service has always been friendly. If a movie is out of stock they’ll take your name and ring you up when it’s returned (and hold it for a few hours.)
The late fees are crazy, though I’m not too bothered by that… it would seem more reasonable to charge a repeat rental rate instead of a per day rate. (One time I returned a movie over a week late and the clerk deducted late fee charges for days where other copies were in stock… I think even he was embarrassed by the crazy charge.)

If you had asked me 2 years ago what I thought of Video Nook, it would be really different. One time my boyfriend and I went out of town without returning the movies (oops!) and lucky us, we had 4 movies out. I kid you not, we were charged over $ 300 in late fees that time. There was no mercy and I was f***ing pissed. Not only were the late fees outrageous, but it was sort of my boyfriend’s fault, so he was planning on paying the fees but behold– Video Nook charges MY credit card on file without MY consent and we had only turned in the movies a day ago. I didn’t even get a chance to speak with them. Outrageous!
Let’s just say, I took a break from this place.
BUT desperation drew me back years later and– IF YOU RETURN MOVIES ON TIME (i am bad at that, too) — the place is honestly a pretty good neighborhood video store (actually mostly DVDS). They have some more independent movies, which is nice and unexpected in a small place. Some of the guys who work there are friendly and the owner types up reviews of recent movies that I find are helpful. Just don’t let your movies go late for longer than a few days or you will get a big surprise on the old Visa bill.

Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? These guys are like the Video Nazis ~ everything must be done juuuussst right not to get snapped at. Go through the turnstile in the wrong direction? Snap. Fail to have your video rental card with you (even though they have your phone number in the system)? Snap snap. Return the movie by setting it ON THE COUNTER instead of dropping it in the bin? Whoa – watch out: Snap snap snap. I wont even bother to talk about the late fees – because three snaps and you’re out. I joined Netflix.

oh it’s ON video nook!!! god help you when i figure out how to do negative stars.
you call yourself a video store? how about calling yourself: Purveyor of Old Ass Movies You’ve Never Heard Of.
you pretend to be the friendly, mom-​and-​pop, neighborhood video rental establishment. you give yourself a cutesy name, video «nook». how adorable. i walk in, wanting to rent some movies for the weekend, choosing to spend my money here rather than at a chain store… and what do you do?
you TRICK ME. you sort of vaguely mention when the movies are due, fail to mention your exorbitant late fees. actually i’m pretty sure you told me they were all due in 4 days. apparently, you have a very complex system of due dates and late fees. 1 movie was due in 4 days, 1 movie was due in like 3.5 days, 1 movie was due in like 2.38 days, 1 movie was due in 5 hours… or some crazy shit like that.
of course, thinking that you are a normal video rental store, i turn in the movies a few days late. whatever, who turns in movies on time. i’m expecting a couple bucks in late fees. when you say: $ 30…i’m like, i’m sorry, did you mean to say $ 3? because, if you actually did say $ 30, i’m going to climb over this counter and kick your thieving ass.
i hate you video nook. you lie, you trick, you steal. you must be making an f-​ing FORTUNE. mom-​and-​pop store my ass. like a normal person, i now use Netflix.

This was convenient for a while – a friend lives about a block away, and we opened an account there using my credit card.
Well, I got a call saying a couple movies were 3 days late, and that an $ 80 hold was going to be placed on the account. While I thought that their hold amount was unreasonable, I understood that it was their policy and didn’t argue. The man who called was quite polite and sympathetic, and said he would see if they could wait until the next day to place the hold, since my friend wouldn’t be able to return the movies until then.
Imagine my surprise when I get an ‘irregular account hold’ on my account the next day. Not only was the hold not delayed as the guy said he would try to do, but they were charging $ 200 instead of the $ 80 I was told. Well, the bank thought it was odd that I was being charged $ 200 by a video store, and denied the charge. So Video Nook tried to run it again – a total of 7 TIMES – in the amounts of $ 200, $ 200, $ 160, $ 160, $ 100, $ 80, and $ 80. In that order – they didn’t get to the original quoted hold amount until they had tried larger amounts 5 times!
Ridiculous. I never had a problem with the service, and selection wasn’t great, but it was ok. On the other hand, when a place inspires me to get a new bank number because I don’t trust them to throw my information away when requested… thats not a good business to patronize in my book!
Beware!

Y’know Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons? The employees here will remind you of that a-​hole. Ask them a question and they’ll point to a sign while glaring at you.
And they don’t mess around when it comes to making money. I had a situation a year ago (long story) but basically:
1) They told me they would not charge my ex-roommate’s $ 48 outstanding balance to my credit card.
2) They charged my card the next f-​ing day.
3) I called my credit card company and reversed the charge.
4) Video Nook almost called «the police» to report me, or something like that. Luckily my ex-​roommate was in town that day and paid what he owed.
Attitude rating: 0
Story policy: 0
Selection: 3.5
Overall: 2
BOTTOM LINE: Skip this place and go to Into Video on Haight Street. They are wayyyy cooler, have better policies, and have way better selection too.