Roadrunner Records was born in 1986 at 4302 “A” Nicollet Avenue, fathered by original owner Todd Adams, who had just moved to the Cities after selling his Madison store, Mad City.
Sometime in the early 1990s, the store moved over to 4304 Nicollet and expanded quickly into the growing format of CD by expanding into 4302 “B” Nicollet.
During this time we had many in-store performances by local and national bands, including The Mekons, The Go, Bonnie Prince Billy, Eric Anderson, Michael Hurley and Michael Yonkers, to name a few.
We also featured big sales events with the basement offering thousands of LPs, which regained its dominance as a format, as CDs became decimated by downloading.
In 2008, the store was reduced to 4304 Nicollet, selling primarily used and new vinyl. We hosted events like annual Open Streets performances, and Records Store Day events.
We chose the unpredictable year of 2020 to move a few blocks down Nicollet — to 4532 Nicollet, to be exact — to a new building all our own. Stop in soon and check it out! There’s a whole lot of history yet to be made!
