Record store plans to open soon by Portland's McQuixote Books & Coffee

Maggie Menderski | Courier Journal

Portland’s new record store started over a cup of coffee.

OK, more than a cup.

As Mickey Ball, one of the owners of McQuixote Books & Coffee, was filling orders and talking with regular Danny Seim the wheels — or rather, the records — started spinning about a month ago.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to open a record store here?” became “Maybe we could open a record store?” over an afternoon of conversation.

Now they’re actually doing it.

They haven’t set an opening date, but Ball expects to be selling vinyl alongside lattes and literature sometime this fall.

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I caught up Seim and Ball this week to check out the space and hear a little bit more about the project at 1512 Portland Ave.

For the past few weeks they’ve been sprucing up the room that once bridged the gap between Ball’s shop and the former Tim Faulkner Gallery.

It's steadily getting a new coat of paint, and they're scouting out decorations and furniture.

Seim is partway done with a painting of a horse bearing the store’s name “Rocinante Records,” which nods to the tired horse that belonged to Don Quixote, the coffee and bookstore’s literary namesake.

And really, the record store is an extension of the shop, Ball told me.

Like the bookstore, the record store won’t have every title. Seim, a member of the Portland, Oregon-based band Menomena, says he’d be happy with just 10 well-curated records.

He was joking — I think.

Either way, they’re building enough shelving to handle quite a bit more than that.

The records themselves will take up about 200 square feet. They’re going to add some extra tables so that customers can flow in from the coffee shop. They’ll have a listening station, too.

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Overall it’s a fun project for them, but it’s also a smaller piece of a bigger evolution happening in Portland.

The west Louisville neighborhood has seen an uptick in development in recent years, and with that has come an increase in places people can socialize. Farm to Fork catering is slated to open its café this month, and The Table has been feeding the neighborhood with its pay what you can model for two years.

The neighborhood lost the Tim Faulkner Gallery, which shared the McQuixote building, to Smoketown earlier this year, but it gained a presence from the University of Louisville. Just this week, Mercedes Benz announced a partnership with Jefferson Community and Technical College that will train technicians in a 12,000-square-foot space at 1226 Rowan St.

A lot has changed since Ball opened McQuixote four years ago.

He and Seim aren’t the only two that have wheels, or rather records, spinning.

City Living reporter Maggie Menderski covers retail, restaurants and development in downtown and its nearby urban neighborhoods. Reach Maggie at 502-582-7137 or cityliving@courierjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @MaggieMenderski. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/maggiem.