After flooding closed Del Ray’s Crooked Beat Records earlier this month, the record store announced this weekend that it will close its storefront on Saturday, January 31.
Owner Bill Daly shared the update over Facebook on Sunday. Crooked Beat Records will be open Thursday through Saturday for last visits before closing.
The decision to close comes after Daly was told more extensive repairs would have to be made to the store. But the store won’t be closing for good. Daly’s post also mentioned he is looking for a new location in Del Ray in order to reopen the business.
“We really love Del Ray,” said Daly in a recent Facebook video. “We want to stay in Del Ray, so we’re going to keep looking and hope things will get back to normal real soon.”
Daly first moved his business to 2417 Mount Vernon Ave. after being located in Old Town North in 2023.
Before the closure was announced, customers and vinyl lovers banded together to help support the shop during its time of need. Shortly after the flood waters hit, the store opened a GoFundMe campaign and limited-time T-shirt fundraiser to help with costs. Since Tuesday, the vinyl store has received over $21000 of its $20,000 donation goal on GoFundMe in addition to over $800 through the t-shirt sale.
The money raised will help the store with operating expenses, wages, and immediate remediation and cleanup costs while the store is closed.
According to Crooked Beat, more than 5 inches of water covered the floor throughout the shop, which is located on the basement level of the building. Water continued to flow into the building off and on over the next few days.
As the Crooked Beat staff starts to go through the flood damage, hundreds of records have been damaged, including rare pressings of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and Talking Heads. While the vinyl records are still playable, the record jackets suffered most of the damage. Crooked Beat will eventually host a sale for the damaged records, but a date has yet to be announced.
Feature image courtesy Crooked Beat Records
