Help us hit the ground running

After many years of planning, Grub Records is opening this summer, bringing a fresh new DJ-focused record shop and low-intervention wine bar to the streets of Sheffield!

Who are we?

We’re a brand new record shop that’s been opened by a team of some of Sheffield’s most active DJs, promoters, and party starters. We’ve been planning this for a long time, as we’ve wanted to fill a gap in Sheffield’s dance music digging offering, and are thrilled to be getting it underway. We want to make it a real destination for record diggers, both local and those visiting the city, and aim to turn it in to a thriving community hub that hosts intimate evening dances and in-store events from some of our nearest and dearest alongside the regular record shopping and wine drinking. We share the space with some close friends who are selling a carefully crafted menu of delicious wines that you can enjoy while you dig the expertly curated selection of records, or just relax and listen to our very special sound system with a glass in hand.

The team running the shop are otherwise known as some of the faces behind local parties Apricot Ballroom, Control., Groundwork, Footprints Jazz Club, DIY radio station Mondo Radio, and DJ duo Wow & Flutter. We’ve all been running parties, playing records, and hanging out together for over a decade, but a lack of deep digging spots in the city meant that we were often buying our records from out of town, and we all felt like a proper DJ-friendly record shop here was long overdue. Grub Records sits on the crossroads of our shared tastes, and will provide a space of shared connection over top quality music and wine. We hope it will become a hang-out for music lovers, halfway between a living room and dance floor, and a place people can go to discuss latest releases, forge connections, and relax in a friendly, music oriented space.

Why donate?

Sheffield’s been a thriving hub for DIY music and culture for as long as we’ve known it, and we want to make Grub a worthy addition to the city’s wonderful scene. By linking up with a diverse selection of both up-and-coming and established local, national, and international talent, we look to create a central spot for the city’s DJ community. We’ve hosted a number of in-stores recently, with the Grub team recently hosting the likes of Crazy P, Acid House Death Squad, Cosmo Sofi, Katiusha, and Talking Drums, with a number of other heavyweight artists lined up for the coming months.

Donating here will help us hit the ground running, and allow us to stock the shop with a wider selection of the very best new releases, re-issues, and compilations, complementing the second-hand stock we’re providing from our collections. Overall we’ve donated around £10k's worth of equipment, records, and cash, but helping us get up and running faster will mean a wider range of genres on the shelves from day one, allowing us to diversify the selection of styles available and create a space with something for everyone.

Why are we fundraising?

Except for some very kindly donated kit from the team at Audio Technica and a few generous donations by our community, everything in the store so far has been funded or donated by ourselves. An incredible pair of Tannoy Westminsters from one of the owner's private collections has been installed, while a custom DJ booth has been designed and hand built by ourselves, and extensive renovation work was needed and completed in the weeks leading up to the soft launch in June.

We’ve all been putting pretty much every free hour we have into the shop as we try to breathe life into the space, as we see this as something that would be a hugely positive addition to Sheffield, and is a project that we’re all super passionate about. 

Your early support here can help us bring you the very best version of Grub. While we share the space with the wine bar, the revenue from alcohol sales is separate and doesn’t go towards the operation of the record shop - which is usually where a venture like ours generates the majority of its income. This is a positive arrangement for us as it helps us keep costs low for the record shop, but it means we don’t have access to a fast early revenue stream. Record shops aren’t typically a goldmine, but their value is in the spaces they create and the local music scenes they add to and support.

Supporting us here will help jump-start our early revenue, by buying gift vouchers, memberships, and merch, with all the profits being reinvested back in to the store for its continued improvement. There’s rewards available for donations of all sizes, and your active backing of the project at this early stage would be incredible.

Thank you very much for stopping by, and for anything you purchase to help us get up and running.

Aaron, Gabe, Harry, Jamie, and Lily at Team Grub x