By Dan Stacey

Copyright expressandstar

Stay Loose Records had originally found a home on Farmers Fold in the Mander Centre after opening in 2018, but was forced to close after five and a half years due to rising costs and the knock-on impact of the roadworks on Victoria Street, Wolverhampton.

However, during regular visits to a coffee shop just a few doors down from his former store, owner Ian Davies came up with a plan to revitalise his beloved record store business alongside two new ventures.

“I was going in regularly to meet a friend for a coffee,” Ian began. “We got talking to the owner and initially we were going to ask about putting an art and music event on, just as a one off.

“That didn’t come off but we kept going, and after some brainstorming with the owner we realised that it’s such a good space and deserves more than just a record shop and a coffee shop, so we’re creating a multi-purpose community hub.

“There’s the café downstairs, and then one room upstairs for the record shop and another for the art space.

“We’ve already had art exhibitions and music events on upstairs focusing on local musicians and artists and we want to really focus on that going forward.”

Plans for the multi-purpose space at Tunwalls English Kitchen began earlier this year, and Stay Loose have already hosted art exhibitions and music events upstairs in their city centre store.

It is a meaningful return for business for Ian Davies, who admitted being ‘heartbroken’ when he was forced to shut his shop two years ago.

“It’s still a sore subject,” he said when discussing the closure. “The roadworks on Victoria Street were diabolical for us. It was noisy, dirty and dangerous.

“Brexit and Covid didn’t help, and just the general cost of living and running the shop meant I had to close it down.

“It was heart-breaking, but now we’ve got this concept and it’s no longer just about the record shop being a record shop on it’s own.

“We’ve got the café, the record shop and the arts and music room, so we’re giving people three reasons in one to visit.

“As much as it’s easy to stream off Spotify, people still want to own something and have physical copies of music.

“It’s more real. If you’re on the go you can’t listen to records so it serves it’s purpose there, but people want to have real copies of songs or albums and that’s still very important.”