Best Record Store

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Alexa Cude

With its latest gold win for Best Record Store, Taz Records enters the Best of Halifax Hall of Fame

GOLD WINNER & HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

SILVER WINNER

BRONZE WINNER

Jimmy Donnelly is loath to accept any credit for his record store’s continued success. Since 2010, his Halifax shop has won gold for Best Record Store every year running, and it’s been a fixture of the city’s music scene since 1983—which is why, this year, the record store of record is being inducted into the Best of Halifax Hall of Fame. “Personally, these last few years, I've been actively doing everything I can to harm us and make us look bad,” he jokes. “But my staff is always just like, ‘No, Jimmy, we’ve got this.’ So I mostly just sit back and push buttons on a keyboard.” With around 20,000 LPs on offer, plus CDs and movie merchandise, the Grafton Street store punches well above its weight as a hub for vinyl-hunters—and has found enough success to expand into Dartmouth (check that silver win!) and Bedford. “We do hear regularly from people who come visiting from much larger cities [that] they don't have anything like this,” Donnelly says. “It's been a good five years since I opened a store. I should really do that again.”