Baltimore is a better record town than its size suggests, and a harder one to shop than most guides let on. The shops are scattered across neighbourhoods that are not walkable from each other, and the opening hours are genuinely eccentric: one shop opens for four hours a week in two evening blocks, another closes every day at three, a third is upstairs over a bar and stays open until midnight.
So this guide leads with hours. Every address, phone number, website and opening time below was re-checked on November 2, 2026, and where a shop's old website has gone dead or been taken over by something else, we say so instead of linking it.
All fifteen at a glance
| Shop | Where | When | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Sound Garden | Fells Point | 7 days, to 9pm Fri and Sat | The deepest stock and the Record Store Day crowd |
| Celebrated Summer Records | Hampden | 7 days, 12pm to 6pm | Punk and hardcore, and the city's best rated shop |
| Normal's Books & Records | Waverly | 7 days, 11am to 6pm | Jazz, and selling your collection |
| El Suprimo Records | Fells Point | 7 days, 1pm to 5pm | Used everything, including 45s and cassettes |
| True Vine | Station North | 4 days, two of them evenings | The obscure end of the shelf |
| Wax Atlas | Hamilton | 6 days, closed Mon | Records plus turntables, and live music |
| Mount Vernon Records | Mount Vernon | 6 days, closed Mon | A young shop worth supporting, plus DJ classes |
| Protean Books & Records | Federal Hill | Thu to Sun only | Volume: more than 20,000 titles |
| Stardust Records | Federal Hill | 6 days, late into the night | Shopping after dinner |
| Strawberry Fields | Hampden | 7 days, everything shuts at 3pm | A browse on the Avenue |
| Rust-N-Shine | Highlandtown | Weekends only, 12pm to 5pm | Records among the antiques |
| Record Connection | Upton | 6 days, 11am to 8pm | The widest open window on this list |
| Mr Vinyl | Mount Vernon | Weekdays, 8am to 3pm | Selling gear and records, not browsing |
| Trax on Wax | Catonsville | 7 days | Listening stations, and a shop that does RSD |
| Now & Then Music | Halethorpe | Wed to Sun, from 10am | An early start before the city opens |
How we checked this
Most Baltimore record store lists on the web are copies of each other, and copies age badly. Three of the shops that appear on other current lists are not trading: one closed with the shopping mall around it in September, one is now a shopping centre with no record shop in it, and one shut its storefront on September 30 and sells online only.
Our Maryland directory holds 84 shops with sourced research behind each one. For this guide, every Baltimore entry was re-checked against Google's live business records on November 2, 2026 for trading status, address, phone, website and opening hours, and the results were read against the shops' own sites, their own social channels, local press and Baltimore's official visitor guide. Where two sources disagree, we say they disagree rather than picking the tidier answer.
The shops, one by one
Ordered by how likely they are to be worth your first trip, not alphabetically.
The Sound Garden
The biggest record store in the city and the one most people mean when they say they are going record shopping in Baltimore. It has traded on Thames Street since 1993 and describes its own stock as the largest selection of new and used vinyl on the East Coast, alongside more than 100,000 CDs and DVDs. It has collected over 50 best-of awards and was voted the second best record store in the United States by Rolling Stone in 2014. There is a second branch in Syracuse.
It is also the city's Record Store Day centre of gravity. In April 2026 the queue ran down Thames Street, up South Broadway and round onto Shakespeare Street, and the first person in line turned up at six o'clock the previous evening. If you want one shop that will definitely be doing something on Black Friday, this is the safest bet in Baltimore. It also keeps the longest hours of any shop here, open until nine on Friday and Saturday, which makes it the only realistic option if you work days.
Celebrated Summer Records
The highest rated record shop in Baltimore, and it has earned it. Tony Pence opened it in 2006 in the back room of a games and comics shop in Towson and moved it to Hampden in 2010. He describes the stock as a little bit of everything, which in practice means deep punk and hardcore next to jazz, soul, hip-hop, blues, metal, country and psychedelia, with memorabilia from Baltimore's own punk scene on the walls.
It is a small room and it rewards patience rather than speed. Open seven days, same hours every day, which is rarer than it sounds on this list.
Normal's Books & Records
Books on one side, records on the other, and a jazz section that is the reason most crate diggers make the trip. It also runs readings, film screenings and performances, so it works as a venue as much as a shop.
Worth knowing if you are clearing out: they buy books and records, in their own words, "Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12 to 5." Open seven days, which makes it an easy add to any route.
El Suprimo Records
A used shop in the proper sense, a short walk north of the Sound Garden. Jack Moore's shop carries used vinyl, 45s and singles, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, books, turntables and even instruments, spanning jazz, soul, blues, hip-hop, classical, punk, metal, country, folk, reggae and R and B. It takes trade-ins and buys collections.
The catch is the hours: one till five, every day, and that is the whole window. Pair it with the Sound Garden rather than making a special trip.
True Vine
A long-standing shop in the Station North arts district with a reputation built on the odd and the obscure rather than the new releases wall.
Read those hours twice before you set off. It is shut three days a week, open two evenings and two afternoons, and the evening and afternoon windows are different. There is no working website, so the phone and the door are your only confirmations.
Wax Atlas Record and Stereo Exchange
Up Harford Road in Hamilton, and the one on this list that tries hardest to be more than a shop. Its own site opens with the line that it is "1 million more than a record store," and it backs that up with a small stage for live shows, a dollar section, and a free crate on the pavement outside.
The stereo half matters too: it buys and sells turntables and separates, so it is a sensible stop if you need a deck as well as the records to play on it.
Mount Vernon Records
The youngest shop here and the one with the closest call. William Hicks and Aaron Spence opened it on West Read Street in 2022 as a community store, selling records alongside art, clothing and music supplies, and running classes in DJing and music production.
In August 2026 Hicks went public that the shop was in immediate danger of closing over overdue bills after sales dropped sharply, and asked for help. The response was immediate and a fundraiser followed. We checked its trading status on November 2 and it is open. If you only have time for one new stop this year, there is an argument for making it this one.
Protean Books & Records
One of the largest independent book and record stores in the city, carrying more than 20,000 titles along with board and video games, clothing, turntables and novelty items.
Two warnings. It has moved: the address above is current, and plenty of lists still send people to the old Leadenhall Street door. Baltimore's own visitor guide hedges the new address with the words "for now," so call before a long trip. And it is only open Thursday through Sunday.
Stardust Records
Upstairs above a bar on Light Street, stocking vinyl, movies, CDs and video games. The hours are the story: this is the only shop in Baltimore you can browse at eleven at night, and on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday it runs to midnight.
If you are the sort of person whose record shopping happens after dinner rather than before lunch, this is your shop. Note that the domain stardustrecords.net belongs to an unrelated store in Wisconsin, so do not use it to check the hours.
Strawberry Fields Hampden
On the Avenue in Hampden, mixing records with vintage costume jewellery, comics, toys and collectibles. It is a browse rather than a hunt, and it suits a wander down 36th Street more than a dedicated trip.
Everything shuts at three, every day, so this one goes early in the route or not at all.
Rust-N-Shine
Vintage records alongside housewares, posters, antiques and work by local makers, and a Best of Baltimore pick from Baltimore Magazine in 2023.
Weekends only, five hours a day, so it needs planning around rather than dropping into. The domain rust-n-shine.com no longer belongs to the shop and now serves unrelated content, so use the phone number.
Record Connection
On Pennsylvania Avenue, and the most generous hours of any shop on this list: eleven to eight, six days a week.
If your schedule has killed every other plan on this page, this is the one that will still be open.
Mr Vinyl
Worth knowing about for the opposite reason to the rest of this list. In its own words it buys "records, CDs, turntables, receivers, amplifiers, and related audio equipment," and the weekday-daytime hours fit a buying operation rather than a browsing one.
If you have a collection to move rather than one to build, start here and at Normal's.
Looking beyond Baltimore?
Every brick and mortar record store in Maryland, and in all 56 states and territories, with addresses and hours.
Browse the directoryWorth the short drive
Two shops sit outside the city line but inside a sensible drive, and one of them is among the best in the region.
Trax on Wax
Technically Baltimore County rather than Baltimore City, and worth the drive anyway. Gary Gebler opened it on Frederick Road in 2009 after a music retail career that started in 1974 and took in Sam Goody and Record and Tape Traders. The shop stocks tens of thousands of pre-owned LPs alongside new releases and reissues, with listening stations so you can try a used record before you buy it.
It pays cash for unwanted records and makes house calls for large collections, and its online shop already has a Record Store Day section, which makes it one of the few shops on this page you can confirm is in the habit of taking part.
Now & Then Music
Just outside the city line near Arbutus, and the one on this list that opens earliest in the day. Wednesday through Sunday from ten, which makes it a workable first stop before anything in the city has unlocked its door.
What changed this year
Four shops that still appear on other Baltimore lists are not where those lists say they are. If you have an old guide open in another tab, read this first.
One more: RecordMasters at the Rotunda on West 40th Street comes up in searches and in local memory, but the address is the shopping centre itself and the shop is long gone.
Black Friday in Baltimore
RSD Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday, November 27, and 188 special releases go on sale that morning at participating shops. Three things are worth knowing before you plan a Baltimore morning around it.
Participation is a shop by shop decision. Record Store Day does not allocate titles to stores: in its own words, "Each indie record store makes their own buying decisions and may choose to bring in some titles and not others." So the only reliable confirmation is the shop itself. The official store finder is the starting point, and a phone call settles it.
The Sound Garden is the city's anchor. On Record Store Day in April 2026 the queue outside it ran down Thames Street, up South Broadway and round onto Shakespeare Street. Hundreds of people waited, the first of them arriving at six o'clock the previous evening, and the doors opened at nine. Black Friday is a smaller event than April everywhere, so expect a far shorter queue, but expect one.
Ask what time they open, do not assume. Black Friday opening times are set by each shop and are often earlier than the hours listed above. Every opening time in this guide is a normal-week time, not a Black Friday time.
For the full list of what is coming out that morning, with the pressing quantity beside every title, see our complete RSD Black Friday 2026 release list.
Building a route that works
Baltimore does not reward wandering between record shops, because they are genuinely spread out. Two neighbourhoods give you a pair within walking distance, and everything else is a drive.
- Hampden, late morning. Celebrated Summer at 3616 Falls Road opens at twelve. Strawberry Fields on 36th Street shuts at three, so take it first if you want both. Atomic Books next door at 3620 Falls Road is a bookshop with a bar rather than a record shop, but it is two doors away and worth the detour.
- Fells Point, afternoon. The Sound Garden on Thames Street, then El Suprimo on Aliceanna one street north, which is only open one till five. Doing it the other way round costs you nothing and protects the narrow window.
- Federal Hill, if it is a Thursday to Sunday. Protean on South Hanover and Stardust on Light Street. Protean is shut Monday through Wednesday and Stardust is shut Sunday, so the overlap is Thursday to Saturday.
- Make the drive to Catonsville. Trax on Wax is twenty minutes west and open seven days, which makes it the easiest shop on this whole page to actually get to.
A last practical note. Four of these shops have no website we can verify, and two more have domains that now serve someone else's content. The phone number in each card above is the one to trust.
