Indy CD & Vinyl has never had a website worth mentioning. For most of its existence, it didn’t need one. People just knew where it was — a low-slung storefront on Winthrop Avenue in Broad Ripple — and they showed up.
Dave Mint opened the place in 1985, back when it was strictly vinyl and the neighborhood was a different animal. He’s still there most days, behind the counter or crouched in the stacks, pulling records to file or setting aside something a regular called about earlier in the week. He’s 60-something now, soft-spoken, and he has the particular patience of someone who has answered the same questions ten thousand times without letting it show.
Ask him what he’s most proud of and he’ll probably deflect. Ask him about a record and he’ll talk for twenty minutes. That’s essentially the whole shop in miniature.
The layout is dense but not chaotic. Used vinyl takes up most of the floor space — rock, jazz, soul, country, classical, and everything in between, organized with real care. New vinyl lines the walls. CDs occupy their own section, still robust even in 2024, because Dave never cleared them out when everyone else did. He figured some people would keep buying them. He was right.
The used selection is where this place earns its reputation. The pricing is honest — not inflated to match Discogs speculation, not so cheap you feel like someone’s given up. Dave and his small staff know what things are worth, and they buy collections regularly, so the inventory actually turns. Coming back every few weeks makes sense here in a way it doesn’t at shops that restock once a quarter.
There’s a listening station up front. Nobody forces you to use it, but it’s real — a turntable, decent headphones, and the implicit understanding that you’re allowed to take your time. On a Saturday morning the shop gets genuinely busy: people driving in from Carmel or Greenwood, regulars who’ve been coming since the nineties, younger shoppers who found the place through word of mouth. Dave moves through it without ceremony, pulling something from behind the counter for one customer, talking somebody out of a record they’d regret buying at the wrong price.
He’s not trying to be a destination. He’s not on Instagram. There’s no tasting menu of rare pressings or curated listening events. What he’s built over four decades is something simpler and harder to sustain: a shop where the inventory is good, the prices are fair, and the person behind the counter actually knows music.
Indy CD & Vinyl sits on the north end of Broad Ripple, a short walk from the main strip. Parking is easy. Hours are roughly noon to seven on weekdays, ten to seven on Saturdays, and noon to five on Sundays — though it’s worth calling ahead if you’re making a trip specifically. Cash is preferred but cards work. Most used LPs run between five and twenty dollars; new vinyl is market rate. There’s no minimum purchase, no attitude about what you’re buying, and no pressure to prove you’re a serious collector to get treated like one.
Dave Mint didn’t set out to outlast every other record shop in Indianapolis. He just never stopped showing up. That turns out to be most of it.
