One of the city’s most beloved stores has occupied a space at 6th and Lamar for decades.

Discover Austin explores the culture of Central Texas. We visit landmarks, events, restaurants, history, and much more.

Craig Smyser, Fiv Realty
512-650-7300
Craig@RealEstateInAustin.com

In an era when recorded music is most commonly consumed digitally, Waterloo Records continues to thrive. How are they able to do it? Because they don’t cater to the music consumer, but to the music lover. It also helps that vinyl has made a great comeback over the past decade with younger listeners discovering this medium and falling in love with it. Waterloo has a huge selection of vinyl albums and it accounts for well more than half their sales.

Waterloo not only sells new and used vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, Blue-Rays, and cassettes, but they will also buy or trade them. Of course, they’ve got box sets and collectors editions, too. If you’re new to vinyl, they also sell turnables and speakers. You’ll also find a wide variety of gifts throughout the store.

The list of awards Waterloo has won is long. They’ve been the voted the best record store in town almost every year the award has been given. And they’ve been named by Rolling Stone, Buzzfeed, SPIN, and others to various lists of the Best Record Stores in the country.

Several times a month, there are live music performances at Waterloo (especially during SXSW). One legendary story is from November 2000 when an appearance by Willie Nelson turned into a full-length show as the outdoor concert Willie was supposed to do later that night was canceled due to bad weather.

Along with BookPeople, Waterloo was instrumental in popularizing the Keep Austin Weird slogan which was meant as a rallying cry to support local businesses.

Waterloo Records opened on April 1, 1982 and has been in it’s current space since 1989. John Kunz is the current owner and says that the vision was to create a town square for music lovers and music makers. There is no doubt, the vision became a reality.

The next time you’re looking to get your hands on some music, be sure to visit Waterloo Records and help Keep Austin Weird.

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