Bryn Mawr's TLA Video Closing

After 21 years in Bryn Mawr, TLA Video, a Main Line art cinema fixture, will shutter its doors for the last time on Oct. 7. Following the closure of the company's Rittenhouse Square location in 2011, the Bryn Mawr TLA was the only remaining TLA store.

The video rental store, specializing in art cinema, has a steady customer base— but the company can’t sustain the high rent in the Bryn Mawr Square shopping center, according to manager Miguel Gomez.

Gomez, who studied film at Haverford College, has worked at TLA for 14 years, since he was a sophomore in college. , two miles down the road in Ardmore, and with him will come many of the current TLA employees.

After he got word over a year ago that TLA would be closing the store, Gomez began making plans to open a store of his own.

And while Viva Video, to be located at 16 W. Lancaster Ave. in Ardmore, will have the same feel that TLA did—including the same knowledgeable staff—having his own store will allow Gomez to indulge in some of his own interests, too. Additionally, creating a "film lover's community" will be a focus of the store. Read more about Viva Video here.

TLA, located at 761 W Lancaster Ave., will rent videos through Sept. 30, and the store will be open Oct. 1-2 for returns. The store will close Oct. 3-4 and reopen on Friday, Oct. 5 for a three-day inventory sale, closing Sunday at 10 p.m. for the last time.

“I’ve already had my mourning period for the store, since I knew for over a year that [we’d be closing],” Gomez said of TLA. “So now, I’m ... just very excited for what I’m going to create for people in Ardmore.”

Gomez hopes to open the Ardmore store by mid-October, so film buffs will be able to get their fix soon enough.