Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Vernon.
Comeback Vinyl was formed in 2014 by a mother-son duo who have shared a lifelong bond over music. Years back when Alex started collecting LPs, he and Karen retrieved her record collection that had been stored away for decades. They spent that summer going through each one, cataloging, cleaning, re-sleeving, and organizing hundreds of albums. During that time, the idea of opening a record store was thrown around, but was just a dream. In the spring of 2014, Karen opened a small booth at an antique mall and had a couple of crates of records for sale. That summer, Alex moved home from college and the pair began seeking out more and more albums to buy and sell, and well, some to keep. Their record booth continued to grow and in August of 2015 they opened their own store down the street. Comeback Vinyl has been open at 520 South Main St. in Alpharetta for almost 2 years. The selection covers both new and used vinyl from a variety of genres ranging from the 50’s to today. In the summer of 2017, the store is relocating to a larger location at 1 South Main St. in Alpharetta where Karen and Alex will expand their selection of new and used albums.
Has it been a smooth road?
It has been a smooth road. Neither of us had any experience running a small business before we opened but we’ve been able to grow at a steady pace and figure things out along the way. There’s always going to be a hang up here and there but so far, we’ve been able to work through any issues that have arisen.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Comeback Vinyl – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We stock new and used vinyl records. We specialize in full length albums – so we have very few 12″ singles and we don’t sell any 7″ singles. We try to have a little something for everyone – our inventory covers rock, jazz, blues, soul, funk, metal, country, rap, punk, etc. One of our goals with our upcoming move to a larger space, though, is to drastically expand our jazz reissue section – our new store location will contain the largest selection of jazz reissues in the Atlanta area. We’ve also recently started stocking more audiophile reissues from a variety of genres and plan to continue expanding that part of our store. As far as our used vinyl selection goes our goal is to stock records that are in great condition at a fair price and to put out new stuff every week. We consistently offer both rare albums that can hit $100 in value as well as albums that are in great shape for less than $5 and everything in between. We are a small shop with an extremely small staff and we plan to keep it that way. We enjoy getting to know our customers on a first name basis and being able to talk candidly about music with other record collectors every day.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Atlanta is really spread out – which can be tough, especially with the amount of traffic we have – but what’s cool is each little city within the Atlanta area has its own offerings. Alpharetta, where we’re located, is currently undergoing a major expansion to its downtown area. Tons of new storefronts, offices, condos, & restaurants are being built this year and have been built over the last couple of years. The addition of Avalon and the improvements to the current downtown have made our suburb a really cool place to hang out and it’s only going to get better. We’re very excited to be moving right into the heart of this community.
Contact Info:
- Address: 520 South Main St. Suite A Alpharetta, GA 30009
Moving summer ’17 to:
1 South Main St. Alpharetta, GA 30009 - Website: www.comebackvinyl.com
- Phone: 678-580-0583
- Email: comebackvinyl@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/comeback_vinyl
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/comebackvinyl
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/comeback-vinyl-alpharetta-2
