The familiar flip-flip-flip sounds of customers digging through album bins will return to Twin Cities area record shops this week, but with unfamiliar new social-distancing guidelines in place.
Stores including Down in the Valley, Hymie's, Mill City Sound, Know Name, Cheapo, SolSta, Roadrunner and Rock Paper Scissors will all reopen Monday, when Minnesota's stay-at-home orders are officially relaxed after two months of coronavirus quarantine. Most stores are limiting its number of customers and posting rules to wear masks and remain six feet apart.
Barely Brothers Records in St. Paul, which announced plans to reopen Tuesday, is capping its space to only five customers at a time and urging them to bring masks and gloves.
"Those not wearing a mask will not be allowed to enter the store," Barely Brothers said on its Facebook page.
Mill City Sound, on Mainstreet in downtown Hopkins, is changing its front entrance to specific in/out doorways to create one-way traffic flow. The store is also limiting its capacity to 20 customers at a time and asking them to "keep a distance of at least one cabinet of record bins between you and your fellow shopper."
"We adore all of you and want to make sure that we doing our part in keeping all of us healthy though these difficult times," Mill City's operators posted.
Not all stores will reopen right away, though — and at least two won't return at all.
The Electric Fetus is holding off until May 27, telling customers via Twitter that it still has "a lot of details to work out to keep everyone safe." Among the new policies are a 10-person limit, lessened daytime hours Tuesday through Saturday only, and a new plexiglass partition put in place at the check-out counter.
