About Prime Vinyl

A directory of record shops that only lists what a store says about itself on its own website.

Which shops we include

We list record shops we count as independent: we leave out national chains (FYE, The Exchange) and instrument shops. "Independent" is our editorial criterion for this list, not a sourced fact about who owns a store.

How a store gets listed

1. We find leads: OpenStreetMap shops tagged as music or record stores in Ohio, and local guides from Ideastream, Cleveland Magazine, Ohio Magazine, Travel Butler County and Columbus and Cincinnati guides. Leads are only leads.
2. We open the store's own website. If it doesn't show the store's name and a street address, the store isn't listed.
3. We quote the address the way the store writes it, its posted hours, and any line where it says what it sells or mentions Record Store Day.
4. A script refetches every page and checks that every quote still appears word for word. The site won't build with a quote that fails, and a store whose name or address can't be confirmed drops out. Last check: October 12, 2026.
5. County and map point come from the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder. One address had no match there, so that store uses its ZIP code's center, labelled approximate.

We don't use Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Yelp, Google Maps or Discogs as sources.

Coverage

This is 30 Ohio store locations, not every record store in Ohio. We checked 13 more leads whose websites didn't confirm the store or didn't load at our last check, and found no website of their own for 32 others; many of those publish only on social media. When a store publishes its address on its own site, we can add it.

Record Store Day

We wanted to mark Record Store Day participating stores using Record Store Day's own store list. On October 12, 2026, recordstoreday.com answered our automated check with a human-verification (CAPTCHA) page. We stopped there and didn't look for another way in. So nothing on this site comes from Record Store Day: the "Mentions RSD" label means the store mentions Record Store Day on its own site. For the same reason we don't show Record Store Day dates.

What the labels mean

• Used vinyl, New vinyl, CDs, Turntables, Live music: the store's own site says so, in a sentence or in its own category name. The quote is on the store's page here.
• Sunday hours: the hours the store posts include Sunday.
• Mentions RSD: the store mentions Record Store Day on its own site. A mention isn't proof that a store takes part.
• Distance: straight-line miles from your ZIP code's center to the store's map point (the store's ZIP center where the address had no geocoder match), using the Census Bureau's 2024 ZIP code (ZCTA) centers.

The dataset

primevinyl-ohio-2026.json is the frozen snapshot this site is built from: every store, quote, source URL and Census field.

SHA-256: a08c06e86a3f76edd00175e3d3c6257795f8c506ae54ebf70cc3b46707e76b58

Who we are

Published by North Coast AI LLC. Built with AI assistance and reviewed by Bill Burkey. We're not affiliated with Record Store Day or any store, and no store paid to be listed.

Ads and analytics

This site shows Google AdSense ads and uses Google Analytics to count visits. There are no affiliate links. A ZIP code you enter stays in your browser and never goes to our server; the ZIP finder only works with JavaScript on, and without it the finder is hidden. See the privacy policy.

Corrections

Store owners and readers: if something here is wrong or out of date, tell us through North Coast AI with a link to the store's own page, and we'll fix it.