After 16 and a half years in business Showtime Video in Wisconsin Dells will be closing its doors for the last time on Nov. 30.

Store owner Mike Showalter said the thing he will miss most about the store is the relationships and friendships he has made with the thousands of people who have visited. He said through the store he's been able to get to know everyone from life long Dells residents to tourists visiting for a summer.

"Last week I had a young girl come in who was buying movies for college, I think she is a freshman in college, and as her mother came up and paid the bill it occurred to me that she had been coming to my store since she was on her mother's hip. And that was a bit of bittersweet memory because I had seen her grow up from a little girl in diapers to a freshman in college," said Showalter.

For Showalter Showtime Video was like a traditional barbershop, a place where people went to get a service, but also went for social reasons.

He said when they hired people it was not because of their movie knowledge, but because of their outgoing and friendly nature.

"We wanted our guests to look at them as friends and not just movie advisors," said Showalter.

He said unfortunately it looks like the industry is going in the opposite direction.

People can now rent from rental locations without clerks at kiosks like Redbox or use services like Netflix, which allows users to rent movies without leaving their houses, or depending on their service plans, potentially renting and watching from their computer chairs.

"Its very emblematic of people becoming more closed to other human contact," said Showalter.

Showalter said the video rental process becoming less social thing has hurt the video rental stores, but no one thing is responsible for its current state.

"About five years ago we saw a dip off because of DSL. It was no longer waiting interminable amounts of time for a page to load up, it was click, click, click. I wasn't competing with another movie vehicle, I was competing for my customers free time," said Showalter.

He described these changes as bullets to the body of the movie rental business; no one issue would be fatal, but their combination was just too much.

"Whether its downloading, streaming or pirating, the piece of the pie just kept getting smaller and smaller and unfortunately something I really enjoy doing is now something that is not financially smart to do," said Showalter.

He said he had that realization after a particularly bad day in October when the store did $8 in gross sales.

"We've had bad days where the Packers are on Monday Night Football against the Bears and you do 20 bucks in business," said Showalter. "It was never that bad where you do two rentals in an entire day."

Showalter said he's had some fantastic sales days since then and the fact he's selling off inventory has certainly helped the numbers, but it won't stop the inevitable.

He said the closing will allow him more time to watch movies.

"Everybody assumes that I have seen every movie ever. They're shocked when I haven't seen a movie," said Showalter. " Now I can check out a movie as it were from the video store."

Those interested in purchasing a video or with any suggestions of movies Showalter might want to see can visit Showtime Video, 902 Broadway, Wisconsin Dells, before it closes on Nov. 30.

Showalter's favorite movies include for romance, "Love Actually," for drama, "Shawshank Redemption, and for a true story, "In the Name of the Father" with Daniel Day Lewis.