Just minutes after opening time, CD Central owner Steve Baron is already on the phone with an eager customer.
"Oh, yeah. It looks like it did come in. I got it right here for you," Baron says.
The early start is hardly a surprise, given the fan base the beloved music shop has built up over three decades on South Limestone near University of Kentucky campus.
And Baron says business is still great — in large part thanks to the surprisingly durable resurgence of vinyl — but he believes it's time to think about retirement. The reaction to that announcement, he says, has given him a sense of how much the store has meant to its many patrons
"The outpouring of support and and sadness at its closing is really been overwhelming. But, basically, I felt it was time to move on and, you know, essentially give somebody else a chance to run a record store," he explains, leaning over the counter.
Yet surveying the colorful walls as shoppers begin to steadily fill the aisles, Baron acknowledges it's difficult to say goodbye to his "baby" — which has seen formats come in and out and back in style, the birth of Record Store Day, live shows, graduation photoshoots, and countless musical conversations and discoveries.
"We've actually had marriage proposals in here," he notes. "It's really been amazing, how it's kind of gone on and been different things to different people."
And lest we forget Zena, an easygoing collie shepherd/husky mix adopted from the Lexington Humane Society who greeted regulars and pleasantly surprised newcomers to the store for eleven years.
As for the next spin under new owners, Baron can't say too much yet, except that it will remain a destination for records with many of the same fixtures even sticking around. But he hopes the change will bring some new ideas and new energy.