Record store Groove Records closes due to massive rent increase

The investor wants more than three times the rent, so it’s over now. The Kreuzberg record store Groove Records has to close.

It’s over at the beginning of the week. The record store Groove Records in Berlin-Kreuzberg will be opening its doors for the last time. Monday will be the last regular opening, and on Tuesday only without card payments. After that, it will close forever, after 40 years.

The reason is a massive rent increase. Instead of 700 euros per month, the investor who has owned the building for some time now wants 2,500 euros per month. Record dealer Detlef Müller told the Tagesspiegel: “I knew I didn’t even have to mess with them.” When he opened the shop in the 80s, he was still paying 300 marks in rent.

Groove Records is located in one of the areas of Berlin that has changed massively in recent years due to gentrification. Right next door is Markthalle 9, which used to be a real market hall, but since the Aldi store inside it closed, it has only offered hip, high-end food for the well-heeled and tourists. The market hall is “the engine of gentrification” in the neighborhood, writes the “Taz”. Groove Records is the latest victim of this development. And this despite the fact that records are now in high demand again after a long low. According to Statista, around 4.6 million vinyl LPs were sold in Germany in 2023. At the low point in 2003, there were only around 300,000.

But Detlef Müller never aimed for the highest possible sales. “I wanted to sell good music that stands out from the mainstream,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”. Anyone who wants to secure some of this good music still has until Tuesday to do so. The clearance sale has been going on for a while, though. Anyone who wants to secure a huge piece of Groove Records has the chance to do so. Müller still wants to get rid of the large sales counter, a self-collection, price is negotiable.