COURTESY OF MUSIC RECORD SHOP
The good news? The thief only swiped a single item.
"They left our cash register, an iPad, a computer, our stereo system," Carter says. All that was stolen? A pair of headphones.
Carter sounded philosophical when we reached him today, despite being woken up at 5 a.m. this morning with a phone call from the police letting him know about the burglary. He's glad no one was hurt and that (almost) all of his inventory was untouched.
Still, he's now contemplating some big changes. The store — the RFT's pick for "Best Record Shop" in 2014 — originally opened in the Grove, but left its home there in September for a storefront in Grand Center.
Even at the time, Carter knew the move wasn't permanent. He was simply biding his time until the shop's ultimate home, a pair of spaces in .ZACK, the arts incubator just down the street, was ready for the store to move in. Now he's wondering if that time might be sooner than he previously thought.
The whole point of the .ZACK move is to give Music Record Shop the space it needs to grow. Half of the business has already moved in, with a third-floor office area totaling 2,500 square feet and serving as the headquarters for a thriving online business. The other half is the retail component, which will be another 1,500 square feet on the second floor.
"We ran out of space in the Grove," Carter says. "This is going to help us expand into buying more product and then pushing the product online. We have all these plans we're going to roll out."
Carter says he anticipated having the second-floor shop open in its new digs on .ZACK's second floor by mid-January, but now may move things up. He's going to make a decision soon.
In the mean time, Music Record Shop is closed to retail customers and will likely remain so for a few days. Check back for updates, or keep an eye on the store's Facebook page for further details.
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