Kentish Express Ashford & District
A bigger home for vinyl record shop as business booms
An old school vinyl record store has been such a success in Ashford, the owners have had to move into a bigger store.
Father and daughter duo, Vincent and Tahlula Monticelli, opened The Record Store in a small kiosk outside Wilkos in Park Mall in September last year.
But now, with business booming, the pair have moved their stock of records, CDs and music memorabilia into a bigger unit just a few metres away in the former Creative Collective gallery.
Tahlula, 21, explained: “My dad raised me on records so I’ve had a love for them forever.
“My mum told him to do something with his record collection or she’d kick him out because it was taking up most of the house.
“So he suggested opening up a record shop, and it’s just been brilliant.
“We had to move because we couldn’t fit more than four people in the kiosk and it was so busy we needed a bigger site.
“I would like to see this become even bigger than it is. At the moment it’s one shop in Ashford but people need record shops all over the country like this.
“You can talk about albums and good music in record stores, it’s a place for people who have a love of music.
“We have a sofa here specifi- cally for people who want to come in and have a chat about music, where else can you do that?”
The Record Store is supportive of local musicians and the pair have even been hosting live gigs in their Park Mall store.
Vince said: “We have a passion for music. We have had live artists in the shop for our opening, we are going to make that a regular feature.
“We stock all the local bands CDs, they can’t afford to press it on vinyl unfortunately, we don’t take any cut out of that.
“The people in Ashford have really welcomed the premise of our record store and it has been really encouraging, which is why we took the gamble.
“A bigger premises means higher overheads but as long as they continue to support the shop then we’ll have a really good record shop in the town.”
To find out more about the business check out The Record Store Ashford on Facebook, call 01233 660360 or email therecordstoreashford@gmail. com