St. Louis Record Stores Vintage Vinyl, Planet Score and Euclid Records Reopen Today

As businesses across the St. Louis area begin poking their heads up out of their quarantine bunkers and offering their wares to the public again, three of St. Louis' favorite record stores are opening back up today as well.

Vintage Vinyl (6610 Delmar Boulevard, 314-721-4096), Planet Score Records (7421 Manchester Road, 314-282-0777) and Euclid Records (19 North Gore Avenue, 314-961-8978) are all open to the public as of today, joining Record Exchange, Music Record Shop and Wax Rats, which all opened their doors in May.

But as with those stores, the ones reopening today will have some new safety guidelines in place aimed at controlling the spread of coronavirus.

Vintage Vinyl and Planet Score have each installed plexiglass at the checkout counter, offering protection for both shoppers and store workers. All three stores will have hand sanitizer at the ready for all guests. Euclid and Planet Score will require all customers and employees to wear masks. Orlandez Lewis, marketing and promotions director for Vintage Vinyl, says that the store will require employees to do so, but for customers masks will be optional.

"Masks will not be a requirement," Lewis tells RFT. "If people come in and say, for instance, they forget their mask, or they would feel better with a mask, we do have a good amount to where we’ll be able to supply people, customers, if they wish to wear a mask and have gloves and such. But we aren’t making it a requirement."

All three stores will be enforcing social distancing, and there will be limits on the number of people allowed in each store at any given time, in accordance with guidelines from local leadership.

For some, that means a fairly small number. In a caption of a photo posted to social media on Monday afternoon, Planet Score noted that, "Ten minutes back and we’re at full capacity," which in this case means eight customers and two employees. "There could be a little wait if ya come by today, fair warning."

But there will also be new procedures in place at some stores for those who would prefer not to go inside just yet. Euclid Records, which lists its entire inventory on its website, will be offering curbside pickup in addition to mail-order and, starting this week, delivery within a ten-mile radius at the store. Vintage Vinyl, meanwhile, is revamping its website and offering curbside pickup for customers.

"Before it was just kind of our accessories, T-shirts and Vintage Vinyl things," Lewis says. "But now we’re gonna be looking to actually selling music and other things on there as well."

It's worth noting that these guidelines can and likely will evolve over time as we learn more about COVID-19 and how it spreads. In a social media post going over the store's new guidelines, Euclid Records says, "Remember, these aren’t set in stone, they're written in pencil and will change from week to week."

For up-to-date information about mask requirements, social distancing rules, sanitization procedures, store hours and new contactless ways to pay, you can visit the Vintage Vinyl and Planet Score Records and Euclid Records Facebook pages.

And while it could be months until you can just casually hang out in a record store all day again, at least for now you can get in, make your purchases and slide on home with your new pandemic companion goods.

"We just wanna thank everybody who’s been patient with us and dealing with a lot of things in this time," Lewis says of Vintage Vinyl. "The most important thing is we want our customers to feel safe and we want the staff to feel safe as well, but we just want them to know that we’ve been thinking about them and we do appreciate their patience."

• Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get the latest on the news, things to do and places to eat delivered right to your inbox.
• Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.