Historic Connecticut record store is closing its storefront. ‘We're feeling so much love,' owner says

Miami Herald

09-07-2025

HARTFORD, Conn. - Replay Records is taking its final in-store spin as the owners are planning to close the storefront this month after 36 years in business.
Owners Doug and Mary Snyder announced on Facebook and Instagram last month that the Replay storefront, located at 2586 Whitney Ave. in Hamden, would be closing at the end of July.
"It's time to close our doors and open up some new adventures for us and to enjoy more time together," the Facebook post said.
Many customers shared their memories of the record store on social media.
"You have made many people happy with your wonderful store full of music and great vibes. Wishing you all the best for your next adventure," one commenter said.
"Thank you for the years of great music and lots of good conversations," said another commenter.
Like a lot of businesses which are based around collectibles like records or books, Replay isn't going completely out of business. It is closing its comfy brick-and-mortar store on Whitney Avenue and will now be buying and selling used, rare and collectible albums primarily through the online record marketplace Discogs.
Remarkably, Replay hasn't gone into active online record selling until now. Most small record stores get by through balancing in-person selling and selling through the internet, but Replay has remained strictly a storefront operation.
Mary Snyder, who maintained a job at Yale University while also working in the record shop, has been sidelined by hip and knee surgery. Doug Snyder said he wishes she were able to be in the store for these days following the closing announcement just to hear the outpouring of affection from regular customers.
"We're feeling so much love," he said. "This has been my day thing for so long."
Doug Snyder's own musical tastes are wide-ranging but based around sounds he has enjoyed for years. "Every night I listen to some classical, some classic rock, some prog. I like the old stuff, from the '60s. I still listen to the Kinks a lot."
In the 1980s in New Haven, record stores were everywhere. Many have closed, including the iconic Cutler's Record Shop which shut down 2012 after 64 years in business. but many others have endured including Gerosa's Records in Brookfield, Merle's Record Rack in Orange, Exile on Main Street in Branford and Mystic Disc in Mystic.
New London's Telegraph Autonomous Zone is part of a legacy of record shops run by local arts maven Rich Martin dating back to the 1990s. Many record shops have small stages and offer performances or appearances by local and indie bands who are touring through the area.
Replay Records began after the closing of Festoon's Records in downtown New Haven in the late 1980s. The Snyders had both worked at Festoon's for several years. When it closed, they decided to open their own shop in the same location. That was in June of 1989. Without purchasing the actual Festoon's business or name, they did end up with some of Festoon's records as well as some of its record racks.
Replay was located in that downtown New Haven location above Town Pizza on Whitney Avenue near Grove Street for just a couple of years before moving to Sawmill Plaza in West Haven. Fifteen years after that, when changes in the plaza led to raise in rent, Replay found a new home on a different stretch of Whitney Avenue in Hamden in 2007 and has been there ever since.
"We started in the year that record companies were trying to eliminate vinyl," Doug Snyder said. "There was still new vinyl but it was mostly coming from other countries."
Like Festoon's, Replay was more interested in selling old LPs than working with distributors to stock new ones. The store was also part of a grassroots movement keeping the old formats of vinyl and tape alive. They always carried some CDs but that has always been a relatively small part of the Replay shopping experience.
A lot of small independent record stores have benefited greatly from Record Store Day, when record companies large and small release special collectible vinyl LPs, often reissues of classics or rare live recordings. At some stores, Record Store Day brings more sales in a single day than on any other day of the year and helps the businesses get through fallow periods. Replay used to take part in Record Store Day, even opening at midnight some years, but stopped actively taking part a couple of years ago. One reason Doug Snyder gave was was the difficulty of getting the releases that he knows his customers want the most, then the awkwardness of a swarm of customers squabbling over the same titles.
"When a record comes out, you shouldn't have to fight for it," he said.
The Snyders first began thinking about closing Replay a few years ago but decided to wait a bit longer. "If we'd done it when we first thought about it, it would've been 33 ⅓ years," he said, making a vinyl RPM joke.
Replay Records has never been immaculate. There have always been fresh boxes of records to unpack or stacks of LPs needing to be sorted, but since announced closing, the piles are deeper. The neatly categorized racks are still there to be perused but the Snyders have been bringing up boxes from storage that haven't been pawed through in years if ever.
"I don't know everything I've got left," Snyder said. "There's still a lot in the basement."
A visit to Replay in its last few weeks is a vinyl collectors' paradise. Easy-to-find albums in familiar categories are in the same sturdy bins that have defined the store for decade. Boxes of 45s, some with protective sleeves and many without, line the floor near the counter where Doug Snyder sits on the left side of the store.
Until recently, Replay was still buying records. Snyder noted that he just brought in "some really good jazz," including albums from the legendary Blue Note label.
In the last two weeks of July there'll be a final clearance sale with hundreds of LPs, cassettes and CDs being unloaded for $1 apiece, while some of the stock will be retained to be sold through Discogs.
It's the end of an era, but the music will live on.
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