Bloomfield’s Juke Records to close
The little vinyl haven at 4526 Liberty Ave. in Bloomfield is going to need another savior.
Juke Records posted on its Facebook page Sunday a sign showing that the store will be closing before its lease is up in the summer. It promised a massive liquidation sale.
“Fortunately, Pittsburgh has a lot of record stores. Unfortunately, our time is up,” the store posted.
The site has been a record store since 1973 when Jim’s Records moved in. When Jim Spitznagel moved on, it became Paul’s CDs, under Paul Olszewski, from 1993 to 2012. Then it was Sound Cat, owned by Karl Hendricks, before the beloved Pittsburgh indie-rock musician died of cancer.
Jeff Gallagher, a longtime customer from Butler dating back to Jim’s, opened Juke Records in August 2016, keeping the space stocked with new and used vinyl.
“There’s nothing we could do about it,” he said of the closing. “It’s never been a viable entity. My approach was that I wanted it to be the best store for new vinyl, and I think it was, but it was very difficult to do that.”
Among the challenges were new stores, such as Get Hip Records on the North Side, and the fact that “People are getting music for next to nothing now with streaming, and young people don’t take a chance on music much anymore.”
Already, on the store’s Facebook page, loyal customers are scheming ways to give the store a new life.
“I’ve had some people reach out to me since I posted, so I would hope that would happen,” Mr. Gallagher said. “There are people out there who could turn that around, but not me. I’m not willing to sign another lease.”
Right now, there are a little under 10,000 vinyl records at Juke, and he will bring that many or more used records from home for the closeout sale, which could run until the end of July.