"He said the more the merrier, and it'll only make it more of a destination, which is exactly what we thought." Michael Babin, principal at Neighborhood Restaurant Group, told ALXnow that this was how Crooked Beat Records owner Bill Daly answered when Babin reached out about opening a second record shop on Mount Vernon Avenue.
The businesses that arrived on the 2000 and 2100 blocks of the Avenue this fall share two things. They are small, and the owners describe Del Ray as a place where small shops draw people. A record shop that welcomed a competitor and a regional brewery that went looking for under 1,000 square feet are both betting on the Avenue as a collection of little places, with no single anchor.
Two shops, one block, 13 days apart
Mobius Records opened on Saturday, Sept. 12, at 2016 Mount Vernon Avenue, ALXnow reported. It took over the space that had been Mulberry Lane Play Café, and it shares the room with Shorty's Deluxe, the sandwich shop. On opening day the shop promised "an unbeatable list of records, CDs, merch and more" and held a party on what it called "our little corner of Mount Vernon Ave."
Crooked Beat soft-opened at 2101B Mount Vernon Avenue on Friday, Sept. 25, according to ALXnow. That puts it across the Avenue from Mobius and one block up. The shop is new to this address, not to Del Ray. It came to the neighborhood in 2023 after seven years in Old Town North, and it first opened in Raleigh, N.C., in 1997. Its previous Del Ray home was a basement shop up the street at 2417 Mount Vernon Avenue, which closed in May after flooding in January.
On its first weekend at the new address, Daly described the move this way: "It's like the Twilight Zone, same colors, same atmosphere." Its website scheduled the grand re-opening for Friday, Oct. 30, with live music from 11 a.m., T-shirts printed with the new address, a Pink Floyd box set raffle, and coupons from neighbors Department of Beer and Wine and Continues Arcade.
So the timing worked out like this. Crooked Beat had been forced to leave its old space, and Neighborhood Restaurant Group had a corner storefront free. By Babin's account, both owners saw a second shop as a reason for record buyers to make the trip.
Who owns the corner
Mobius is a project of Neighborhood Restaurant Group. According to ALXnow, the group also runs Evening Star Cafe and Hi/Fi Tex-Mex BBQ at 2000 Mount Vernon Avenue and Planet Wine at 2004 Mount Vernon Avenue.
Count the addresses. Mobius at 2016, Planet Wine at 2004, and Evening Star and Hi/Fi at 2000 give one operator a record shop, a wine shop and two restaurants within a few doors of each other, with Shorty's Deluxe sharing the Mobius room. Whatever extra foot traffic a second record shop brings to the block, a good share of it walks past NRG's own doors.
The new spaces are small, and one brewery went looking for that
The other common thread is size. Crooked Beat's new home is a two-story townhouse of 950 square feet, and neighbors told ALXnow it had been empty for more than a decade.
Crooked Run Fermentation went looking for a space that size. The Leesburg brewery opened a taproom at 2003 Mount Vernon Avenue in late August, after a three-month interior renovation, in the space Dolce & Bean left when it closed in spring 2025. Co-owner Lee Rogan told ALXnow, "We were looking for locations under 1,000 square feet and this spot came up."
The taproom has more than 20 seats inside and eight outside. It pours Crooked Run's beers along with wine and cocktails, and the bar menu runs to chicken tenders, pita with hummus, and mozzarella sticks. Rogan said he wanted it to be family friendly, with room to park strollers in a nearby alley. The company was founded in Leesburg in 2013, already has taprooms in Leesburg, Sterling and Northeast D.C., and plans six across the region.
Rogan described how the taproom fits the neighborhood to ALXnow:
"We're not trying to come in and be 'the place' in Del Ray. Because that's not what Del Ray is all about. It's about little places that people can go to and shop in and enjoy, just a local neighborhood spot."
Daly's "the more the merrier" points the same direction. Both owners describe the Avenue as a place that does well with more small shops, not one big draw.
A walk through the cluster
Walking south to north, the new and returning businesses sit within a few doors of each other:
- 2000 Mount Vernon Avenue: Evening Star Cafe and Hi/Fi Tex-Mex BBQ
- 2003 Mount Vernon Avenue: Crooked Run Fermentation's taproom, in the former Dolce & Bean space
- 2004 Mount Vernon Avenue: Planet Wine
- 2016 Mount Vernon Avenue: Mobius Records, sharing space with Shorty's Deluxe
- 2101B Mount Vernon Avenue: Crooked Beat Records, in the 950-square-foot townhouse
Crooked Beat posts its hours on its website and labels them soft-opening hours: Monday 1 to 7 p.m., closed Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday noon to 7 p.m., Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday noon to 6 p.m. Because they're marked as soft-opening hours, check the site before you go. Mobius lists new arrivals and events on its own site.
The Avenue's calendar through mid-December
The cluster gets its first real test as a destination over the next six weeks. Second-Saturday markets, a national record-buying day and the holiday season all fall on the same stretch of the Avenue.
- Every Saturday, 8 a.m. to noon. The Del Ray Farmers' Market runs year-round. The Del Ray Business Association lists it at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square on Nov. 7, 14, 21 and 28 and on Dec. 5 and 12.
- Saturday, Nov. 14. The Del Ray Vintage & Flea Market sets up at Mount Vernon and Bellefonte. The event page says it usually runs on second Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at three spots along the Avenue. The same day, the Gustave Art & Craft Market is listed at 2213 Mount Vernon Avenue.
- Friday, Nov. 27. Crooked Beat is taking part in RSD Black Friday. The shop asked customers to browse the Record Store Day special releases and email the titles they want while it puts together its order, and it notes that it can't promise to get every request.
- Dec. 4 through Dec. 20. The Del Ray Artisans Holiday Market runs at 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, open Fridays 6 to 9 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Sunday, Dec. 6. The Del Ray Holiday Season Kick-Off takes place at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square.
- Thursday, Dec. 10. The Shops of Del Ray Holiday Sip & Shop runs along Mount Vernon Avenue.
- Saturday, Dec. 12. The 11th Annual Del Ray Candy Cane Bar Crawl covers the Avenue, the same day as December's flea market and that week's farmers market.
The full list is on the Del Ray Business Association's events page. On Nov. 14 and Dec. 12, the flea market, the farmers market and the 2000 block's shops all fall on one Saturday morning within a short walk of each other. That is the kind of foot traffic Babin and Daly were describing when they called a second record shop good for both of them.
For anyone weighing what a stretch like the 2000 block of Mount Vernon Avenue means for a home a few doors away, DMV Living Group can walk you through what we see on the Avenue and how it plays into your plans. Schedule your complimentary concierge consultation.
