Josey Records is taking over the 10,000-square-foot space next door to its 15,000-square-foot flagship store in Farmers Branch, making it the largest record store in Texas and one of the five largest record stores in the country. The shop plans to open its expansion for Record Store Day on April 18, 2020.
Josey Records started in Dallas and has opened satellite stores in Lubbock, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Sedalia, Missouri, but it didn’t have any plans to grow in the DFW market until an opportunity presented itself.
“The tenant next door used to be a motorcycle supply shop, and they moved out in the summer, so we thought we would just take it over and add more square footage to the store,” says co-owner Waric Cameron. “We have tons of inventory that we don’t have out on display that we keep in offsite storage, so this is an opportunity to bring all that to the retail floor.”
It’s also an opportunity to create a space that facilitates larger in-store concerts, as well as other interactive shopping experiences. “There are a couple things that we’re going to offer that we want to keep as a surprise. It’s a value add for our customers.” says Cameron.
The extra room will come in handy for this year’s Record Store Day, when Josey Records will host its biggest event yet.
“We have a national act playing, but we can’t tell you who it is yet,” adds Cameron. “They’re pretty big.”
While the idea of a thriving record store may be surprising to some modern consumers, the folks at Josey understand the value of vinyl in a streaming world.
“With records you get the collecting aspect of it, you get the art aspect, you get the sound quality of it…it’s just so much more interactive. There are record buyers who have never left buying records. You’ve got a whole new generation buying records who didn’t grow up buying records, a whole generation that missed it and for whatever reason that generation got wind of it and they just love it, so there’s a resurgence of that interaction and collecting,” says Cameron. “We’re really fostering that environment.”
