After 42 years of ownership, Waterloo Records owner John Kunz announced Thursday that he’s selling the business. The new owners will relocate the store to a larger building five blocks north of its current home on the corner of Sixth Street and North Lamar Boulevard.
“I don’t relish the idea of packing all this stuff up and then unpacking it at the new location… but the alternative would’ve been just horrible,” Kunz said.
Waterloo Records, 24 Diner and the other businesses that operate in the small strip mall have known about the pending move or closure since 2019, when Austin-based real estate agency Endeavor bought the building.
Endeavor did not immediately respond to KUT's request for comment on its plans for the building, but Kunz said the strip mall will likely be turned into a multistory development with underground parking.
“It had been five years and I hadn’t been able to find the right place to move to and I was becoming a little bit concerned," he said. "And then fortunately the right place finally happened."
This spring, Waterloo Records will relocate to 1105 North Lamar Boulevard, a former Louis Shanks Furniture store and later a Whole Foods regional office. The building is 50% bigger, has more parking and has a larger, state-of-the-art stage for in-store performances, according to a news release.
All current Waterloo Records staff will be retained in the move and be given the option to be partial store owners, Kunz said. It will also remain independent and locally owned and operated.
The Austin institution has survived relocation once before. Waterloo Records founder Louis Karp opened the original store in a modest 1,200 square-foot building on South Lamar Boulevard in 1982. Kunz came on as co-owner that same year and became the sole owner in 1987. The store settled at the corner of West Sixth and North Lamar in 1989.
Now Kunz is passing the torch to Caren Kelleher, the founder and CEO of Gold Rush Vinyl, and Austin entrepreneur Trey Watson, CEO of Austin-based record label Armadillo Records.
“There would be no Gold Rush Vinyl without Waterloo Records and the work it's done to keep physical music alive and thriving,” Kelleher said in a news release. “In a time when we're more digitally connected than ever, people still crave something tangible. Record stores offer a place where we can unplug and experience music together, and I look forward to facilitating those kinds of connections for years to come at Waterloo.”
Kunz will be taking on the role of chair emeritus, which he said will allow him to focus on his favorite aspects of the job and leave the less glamorous tasks to the staff.
“That’s the kind of dream job everyone would want,” he said.
From its very first year in business, Waterloo Records has been a staple for music lovers. It won The Austin Chronicle’s "Best Record Store" award in 1982 and continued to win it for the next 40 consecutive years. It's also received national attention from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and BBC. Hundreds of artists have performed intimate live shows at Waterloo, including Willie Nelson, Nirvana, The Shins, Norah Jones and Jeff Buckley.
"For what it's worth, [it] is going to change. I mean we're going to move, we're going to grow — that's change. There's things we did 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago we don't do now. And things we didn't do then that we do now," Kunz said.
"But, the key is also to continue to honor all the hallmarks, the traditions, the legacies that got us where we are. And that's exactly what Trey and Caren and myself intend to make sure never gets forgotten."
