Love vinyl? New SLO County trail links record stores, bars, hotels and more
Record collectors, disc jockeys and good ol’ fashioned vinyl fans now have another way to discover their favorite form of physical media in San Luis Obispo County.
The SLO Vinyl Trail is a new guide listing more than a dozen locations on the Central Coast where residents and tourists alike can find places where the discs are sold, played and enjoyed.
Jeff Root and Lisa Salmon are the masterminds behind the local project. The married couple owns Jan’s Place in San Luis Obispo, an intimate vinyl bar near the Amtrak rail station selling local craft beer and wine.
Root said he and his wife were inspired to create the musical map after witnessing winery trails in SLO and Paso Robles and distillery paths in Kentucky and Tennessee.
“We’ve gotten to know so many people who own record stores or who do pop-up record stores or who are playing vinyl in their bars or in their tasting rooms,” Root said. “So we thought, ‘Why not just stitch all these things together and make somewhat of a guide to the area?’ ”
Jan’s Place officially launched the SLO Vinyl Trail on its website about two months ago.
Root believes it’s the first trail specifically dedicated to vinyl records to exist in California.
How the SLO Vinyl Trail works
As of Tuesday, May 6, the SLO Vinyl Trail digital map featured 14 stores, bars, wineries, hotels and venues that play or sell vinyl records.
Online map users can click on each place to view its exact location and read a short summary of the destination.
The map lists Boo Boo Records in San Luis Obispo as a “legendary spot, in biz for over 50 years,” Traffic Records in Atascadero has a record selection “curated by local legends,” while Locals Taproom in Avila Beach is described as an “airy corner space with a collection of records that you can choose from.”
The trail’s boundaries are flexible, Root said, with most locations in San Luis Obispo County besides “a couple of here and there’s” in Santa Barbara County.
However, he said, the map will be limited to the Central Coast to keep it local and accurate.
Root noted that the SLO Vinyl Trail is not set in stone, explaining that the field guide will be updated to include new places as they pop up in the area.
The goal is to introduce more people to nearby destinations embracing the tactile form of music.
“It just gives you something to do, you know, like, ‘Oh, we found this interesting little map. Let’s follow it on a scavenger hunt. Maybe hit a few places, see how it goes,’ “ Root said.
New map connects local shops, bars and wineries
Prior to launching the SLO Vinyl Trail, Root made a flurry of calls and visits to his friends in the vinyl community.
He reached out to Outward Wines in Grover Beach, a tasting room with “a killer sound system” and an “insanely good flight of wines.”
Other contacts included The Olde Alehouse in Los Osos, which has a fantastic record collection in its front room, and Decades HiFi Lounge, a new night club in Atascadero with a permanent DJ booth and hybrid turntables, Root said.
It didn’t take long for everyone to be sold on the pitch, he said.
“What a great idea,” Boo Boo Records owner Mike White remembered thinking at the time. “Particularly for either new arrivals or tourists that are just coming for the weekend, they have a kind of a field guide.”
Another audiophile who was jazzed about the trail was Jeremiah Highhouse, owner and operator of Vinyl Isle in Morro Bay. His music store has been stocking all types of physical media, including eight-tracks, CDs, tapes and vinyl, for the past 18 years.
Highhouse hopes the county’s vinyl community will grow as the map gains more traction.
Sheldon Ferguson, the co-owner of Decades HiFi Lounge, also echoed that view.
“We’re all working together, and we all want to see everybody succeed,” Ferguson said. “The tide rises all boats.”
SLO County sees local resurgence for record fans
On a typical Tuesday night at Jan’s Place, visitors trickle into the cozy 24-seat space clutching their favorite vinyl.
The beer and wine bar is packed with 2,000 records lining the walls, but these nights — named Open Decks — are reserved for customers to bring in their own LPs.
Each person who walks in gets a chance to spin records from their own collections on the turntable — no experience necessary, Root said.
He pointed to these popular evenings as evidence of a vinyl revival in the county.
“There’s this resurgence of people going back to this medium or this media that everyone said was going away, but it holds up because of its object value,” Root argued. “The covers are beautiful. The records themselves are interesting.”
At Boo Boo Records, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in December, vinyl makes up 55% of all sales, White told The Tribune.
“(Vinyl) has taken on a life of its own again with people really enjoying the fullness of the sound, the warmth of the sound,” White said, describing a multi-generation musical renaissance.
Older customers are buying records from rockers from their youth, while high school students are grabbing arm-loads of vinyl ranging from used dollar bin deals to recordings by top pop artists including Taylor Swift and Charli XCX.
At Locals Taproom, where customers sip SLO County micro-brews while listening to tunes from the bar’s 500-plus vinyl collection, records are constantly sparking conversation among strangers, co-owner Molly Maguire said.
The vinyl sets paired with peoples’ nostalgia for the 12-inch discs foster community at the quaint beach bar, she said.
“The whole focus is just to let the customers come in and curate their experience here, listen to the bands that they want to hear, explore new music,” she said.
The resurgence of records shows that people want to have a tangible experience with the art form, Ferguson said.
Root says the purpose of the SLO Vinyl Trail is to connect physical music enthusiasts in the community.
“I hope that people find places they wouldn’t otherwise have known,” he said.
How to access digital music map
You can find the SLO Vinyl Trail on the Jan’s Place website.
The map is free for anyone to access.
This story was originally published May 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
