This year’s Record Store Day will be the last one Off The Beaten Path will celebrate on the East Side. Following more than six years of quiet growth at 1936-38 N. Farwell Avenue, the independent record store is planning to leave its current site in favor of a more spacious storefront in Bay View.
“We simply outgrew our current space and I do not have room to fit all the equipment and vinyl I’d like to put out,” Off The Beaten Path owner Chris Kruse tells Milwaukee Record.
The new shop will be located at 3201 S. Howell Avenue, the current site of Sophia’s Furniture Studio. Kruse says the reopening could come at soon as June 1, though that date is dependent on when the city issues the occupancy permit. The store will be open on Farwell until the last week of May.
“This new space is sectioned into three separate rooms, so our plan is to do one with vinyl, CDs, and cassettes, one with equipment, and the third will be for repairs,” Kruse says. “We’ll also still carry memorabilia and there will be a lot more of that, too.”
Though the shop will be just south of nearby Rush-Mor Records and Acme Records & Music Emporium, Off The Beaten Path is no stranger existing near other music retailers. The shop’s growth on the East Side occurred just a few blocks from Exclusive Company and mere feet from Bullseye Records.