In 1983, two people who loved movies, Raymond and Gala Mellenberndt, and who were raised with movies, decided to create a store with not just mainstream titles, but classics, foreign movies, documentaries, cult movies, and experimental movies.

There were no more mom and pop theatres like the one they grew up in in Rock Rapids, Iowa...there were no more balconies...no more chandeliers. Where once the movie theatre was the center of small town life, the theatres were now abandoned. So were drive-in theatres. In their place moved cineplex octopuses with twenty small box sized rooms.

Casa Video went out of its way to become unique. In the beginning, it was about the same size as the neighborhood candy store. There were no other stores like it in Tucson. The original location on Grant and Campbell was a universe different from any other video store in the west...like an old book- store, it resembled a cave where someone could discover hidden treasures found nowhere else.