New Guestroom Records location opening in Edmond, OK
Two years after Guestroom Records celebrated its 20th anniversary, the owner-operated record-store chain is officially opening its third Oklahoma location.
EDMOND — The smells of freshly applied paint, newly screen-printed T-shirts and vinyl records just out of the boxes mingle with the sounds of jazz legend Lee Morgan’s exuberant trumpet grooves inside a new store in the 15th Street Station shopping center.
Inside Guestroom Records’ newest location, about 15,000 new and used vinyl albums are neatly arranged in bins, in wooden crates and on shallow shelves lining the otherwise plain, tan walls. The afternoon sunbeams shining in the wide windows glisten on the plastic sleeves enveloping records by an array of artists, from Norah Jones and New Kids on the Block to Zach Bryan and Led Zeppelin.
“We ran out of time to get posters and that sort of thing up. But it’ll get a little bit more personalized as it goes on,” said Guestroom Records owner Justin Sowers.
“We always try to shape the store to our employees, the management, the community, the bands in town, the music scene and everything. So, it might take us a minute to really personalize it towards Edmond, but we’re looking forward to being a part of this community.”
Two years after Guestroom Records celebrated its 20th anniversary, the owner-operated, independent brick-and-mortar record-store chain is officially opening its third Oklahoma location Saturday, Oct. 4.
What is planned for the grand opening of Guestroom Records Edmond?
The grand opening festivities from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 4 at Guestroom Records Edmond, 180 W 15 Street, Suite 130, will include live DJs, giveaways, drinks and the Turkish Delight Food Truck.
Thanks to an eagerly awaited new release from the world’s most powerful pop star, the celebration at the new store will kick off a little more swiftly: Guestroom Records Edmond, along with the Oklahoma City and Norman locations, will host listening parties for Taylor Swift’s 12th album, “Life of a Showgirl,” at 11:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, with friendship bracelets, Champagne and sales of the new LP starting at midnight.
“We’re a full-service record store. We’ve got some equipment. We do new releases every week. We’re doing in-store events, listening parties, Record Store Day, Black Friday. … We’re gonna be buying used records,” Sowers said.
“It’s gonna be fun. We’ve long talked about serving the Edmond community. There’s a lot of music lovers up here that visit our other locations. So, we’ve been looking for a good opportunity. We found the space here, and we really like it.”
Customers at the new Edmond location will be able to browse through new and used LPs, plus CDs, cassettes, turntables, speakers and Guestroom Records merchandise like T-shirts, hats and socks.
“We’ve always vaguely planned on having a store up here. But I would say, in the last probably two and a half years, we did get serious about it. We started saving up money for it,” Sowers said. “The time felt right that we were ready, and we were kind of busting at the seams at our Oklahoma City and Norman stores.”
Marni Vincent, who has worked for Guestroom Records for about a decade, moved to Edmond a few years ago and will be managing the new store.
“I haven’t lived in Edmond all that long. But I’m excited to bring a little pocket of my world up here with me,” she said.
What is the history of Oklahoma’s Guestroom Records?
In 2002, Sowers and Travis Searle were attending the University of Oklahoma and working at Norman’s iconic Pizza Shuttle when they launched Guestroom Records LLC with their personal record collections. They began selling records door-to-door and through their garages and guest rooms, with the latter providing the name.
They started out just toting their inventory in big plastic storage bins. But when they bought a collection of about 1,500 records, “that doesn’t really fit in Rubbermaid tubs anymore,” Sowers recalled. So, they opened their first storefront in 2003 on Crawford Avenue in Norman, next to The Opolis, but quickly outgrew it.
Two years later, they moved Guestroom Norman two blocks to its current location, 125 E Main, which longtime employee Will Muir manages. In 2007, they opened their Oklahoma City store, 3701 N Western Ave.
“I’ve been managing the Oklahoma City store the entire time, so that’s kind of my baby,” Sowers said.
In 2013, Searle packed up Guestroom’s short-lived Bricktown store and hauled it to Kentucky to set up shop in Louisville with his partner, Lisa Foster, a native of the Bluegrass State. Guestroom Records is planning to open a second Louisville store later this month, for a total of five stores in two states.
“He’s on his way here right now for the final push and to be here for the opening. Then, hopefully, we’ll be opening out there in a few weeks, and I’m gonna go out there for that,” Sowers said a few days ahead of the opening of Guestroom Records Edmond.
After making a surprising comeback starting in 2007, vinyl records continue to be in demand among music lovers, including many Gen-Z fans. In 2022, vinyl records officially passed CDs as the most popular physical recorded music format for the first time since 1987, according to a report from the Recording Industry Association of America.
But CDs are now experiencing their own resurgence, and customers at the new Guestroom Records will find a whole shelf devoted to compact discs, something that Sowers said he didn’t anticipate when they started searching for an Edmond location a couple of years ago.
“Now, it’s like, well, we have to carry CDs, because there’s a pretty large segment of people that only buy CDs. It used to be maybe 8% to 10% of our business, and I bet it’s climbed up to almost 15%,” he said.
“There were like three years where all I had to care about was LPs, and then some people started caring about tapes. Then, all of a sudden, people started caring about CDs again, and we’re like ‘OK, all right, well, let’s get some more CDs.’ … So, our stock is always changing.”
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