Ripe Records, a music and record store located on Charlevoix in between Beaconsfield and Lakepointe and owned by Andy Curcucu, is relocating in late September to a larger location. The current location of Ripe is a small shop with over 30,000 records inside. Now, they’re interested in a change of scenery to make the shopping experience more enjoyable for customers by upgrading to a larger storefront. This change is going to increase the music availability in-store, giving Curcucu more room to increase his inventory.
“We’re gonna be doubling the space in the new store,” Curcucu said. “The building’s ready to go, and we have about eight days to move all the records, but we’ll make it work.”
Ripe has been in the community for seven years, opening first in 2018. At first, the store opened as a place for Curcucu to share music with the city, as there was a lack of music shops in Grosse Pointe prior to it. Curcucu opened the store when his personal record collection got too big to just keep to himself anymore.
“I search for records for customers and that’s more fun, because before, I used the record shop for myself and my collection,” Curcucu said. “Now, I shop for customers.”
Ripe has made a big impact on Grosse Pointe residents, allowing a space for all kinds of people who listen to different genres of music to come together in one place to shop. Lainey Chesterton ’29 is an avid music listener and record collector, whose most frequented store is Ripe Records, where she comes to find new and old music.
“You can find a really wide variety of music there,” Chesterton said. “There’s stuff you’ve never seen before, from like a million years ago, and then the next Olivia Rodrigo album right beside it.”
Ripe is not just a place for shopping and purchasing records and equipment; it’s also a place where you can just hang out and talk to other music fans. They host events in the store, like listening parties, and the bigger store will make the events more accessible for everyone involved. Helena Arondoski ’27 is a record collector, but she is also a big fan of the atmosphere the shop has.
“It’s [Ripe Records] really close to my house. I like how you can just go there to shop and have a good time,” Arondoski said. “You can go in and just listen to the music playing through the speakers, it’s nice.”
The new location of Ripe Records will be very beneficial to the music community in the city since it will offer new genres of music they’ve never offered before because of the lack of space, and it’s just a few blocks away from the original location, now located on Kercheval.
“We’re not going far,” Curcucu said. “I’m not going to leave my Grosse Pointe family.”
