Before Neighborhood Restaurant Group opened a record store on Mount Vernon Avenue, principal Michael Babin called the man who would become his nearest competitor. Bill Daly, who owns Crooked Beat Records, was getting ready to reopen a short walk away. "I reached out to him immediately," Babin told ALXnow. "He said the more the merrier, and it'll only make it more of a destination, which is exactly what we thought."
Mobius Records opened September 12 at 2016 Mount Vernon Avenue. Crooked Beat reopened September 25 at 2101B Mount Vernon Avenue, across the street. So Del Ray picked up two vinyl stops in about two weeks. Daly's reasoning explains more of the Avenue than the record shops. When similar businesses sit close together, the Avenue becomes a place worth a Saturday. The holiday calendar follows the same logic, with several events landing on the same days.
The two shops sell different things
Each shop gives you a reason to visit the other, because they aren't copies.
Crooked Beat Records is the older of the two by a wide margin. Daly opened it in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1997. It spent seven years in Old Town North and moved to Del Ray in 2023. In May, flooding forced it out of its basement space at 2417 Mount Vernon Avenue. The new home is a two-story townhouse at the other end of the strip that neighbors say had been empty for more than ten years.
The Zebra walked through the new layout. Used vinyl is on the upper level, new releases are on the ground floor, and the top story is office space for Daly's record label. The shop has bins for Washington, D.C. bands and labels, including Fugazi, Bad Brains and Dischord Records. Staff member Sharon Head, a veteran visual merchandiser, hand-letters the display cards and artist dividers. "It's kind of a lost art," Daly told the paper. The Zebra also reports that Crooked Beat turns 29 this November.
Mobius Records is new and belongs to a restaurant group. It took over the former Mulberry Lane Play Café space and shares the storefront with Shorty's Deluxe, a sandwich shop. When it opened, ALXnow described it as stocking records, CDs and merch. So a Saturday on this block can include a sandwich and a stack of LPs without crossing the street, and then a trip across Mount Vernon to dig through Crooked Beat's used bins upstairs.
Why the record shop sits on NRG's corner
Mobius makes more sense once you see what's around it. Neighborhood Restaurant Group already owns Evening Star Cafe and Hi/Fi Tex-Mex BBQ, both at 2000 Mount Vernon Avenue, and Planet Wine at 2004. With Mobius and Shorty's at 2016, the group now runs most of that short stretch of the block.
Its events point the same way. Mobius doesn't hold shows in the store. It holds them at No. 9 Lounge, the upstairs space at Evening Star Cafe, which is listed as open Wednesday through Sunday from 6 p.m. until late. October's calendar had a Darkest Hour listening party on the 29th and a Queens of the Stone Age "HalloQueen" night with costume karaoke on the 31st. Next up is a NØ MAN record-release show at No. 9 Lounge on Thursday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m. It already shows as sold out on the Mobius site, so check there for whatever gets added next.
That's how one block keeps people around. They buy the record at 2016, see the band upstairs at 2000, and eat somewhere in between. Daly's "more the merrier" was about a second record store, but NRG had already built that kind of cluster at its end of the Avenue before Mobius opened.
After the grand reopening, November 27
Crooked Beat scheduled its grand reopening for Friday, October 30, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The plan included live music starting at 11 a.m., T-shirts with the new address free to the first 30 customers with a purchase, a Pink Floyd box set raffle, and coupons from businesses the shop calls its friends, including Department of Beer and Wine. That shop, a gourmet beer-and-wine store, reopened in its own new Del Ray storefront at 2805 Mount Vernon Avenue in late 2025. Crooked Beat built its reopening plans around a neighbor that had just been through its own move.
The next date to circle is Record Store Day Black Friday, which Record Store Day is running in 2026 and Crooked Beat says falls on November 27. Crooked Beat is putting together its order list now. It's asking customers to browse the special releases on recordstoreday.com and email the titles they want to [email protected]. The shop says it can't promise every request but will try. If there's a release you want, email before the order goes in. Walking in on the day and hoping is riskier.
The Thanksgiving weekend fills in around it. The 51st annual Alexandria Turkey Trot is on Thursday, November 26. The Del Ray Farmers' Market runs Saturday, November 28, at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square, at Oxford and Mount Vernon avenues. That puts a run, a record drop and a market on three days in a row, all within walking distance for most of the neighborhood.
A note on hours. Crooked Beat's website still labels its schedule "Soft Open 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. Since the posted hours are still marked soft-open, check the site before a weekday visit.
The holiday calendar stacks the same way
The Del Ray Business Association's 2026 calendar does on the Avenue what the record shops do on one block. Instead of spreading events across the season, it puts several on the same Saturday. Two dates show it best.
Saturday, November 14
Visit Del Ray's calendar lists three things that day:
- Del Ray Farmers' Market at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square
- Del Ray Vintage & Flea Market at Mount Vernon and Bellefonte avenues
- Gustave Art & Craft Market at Gustave Jardin, 2213 Mount Vernon Avenue
On a map, the market square, the flea market and Gustave Jardin are all on the same corridor as Mobius at 2016 and Crooked Beat at 2101B. You can do the whole loop on foot and end with records.
Saturday, December 12
December is busier.
- Del Ray Farmers' Market, Pat Miller Neighborhood Square
- Del Ray Vintage & Flea Market, Mount Vernon and Bellefonte avenues
- 11th Annual Del Ray Candy Cane Bar Crawl, along Mount Vernon Avenue
- Del Ray Artisans Holiday Market, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays at 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue
The rest of the season
- Del Ray Artisans Holiday Market, December 4 to 20 at 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue. It's open on three weekends: December 4–6, 11–13 and 18–20. Hours are Fridays 6 to 9 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Full details are on the Del Ray Artisans event page.
- Del Ray Holiday Season Kick-Off, Sunday, December 6, at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square.
- Shops of Del Ray Holiday Sip & Shop, Thursday, December 10, along Mount Vernon Avenue.
- Del Ray Farmers' Market, every Saturday through December 26.
The Sip & Shop on December 10 is a good night to try both record shops. Records are an easy gift, and with two stores within a block you can compare stock before you buy.
The City of Alexandria's holiday page has a separate event. The citywide Holiday Tree Lighting is on Saturday, November 21, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Waterfront Park in Old Town. Del Ray's own kick-off is on December 6.
What two record shops mean for the block
Daly's comment was about having more reasons to come to the Avenue. Babin agreed, and NRG had already been doing that at 2000, 2004 and now 2016. The business association plans its calendar the same way, putting the flea market, the farmers' market and the bar crawl on the same Saturday. For someone who lives within walking distance, two record shops make the Avenue an easier place to spend a whole afternoon. Start with Crooked Beat's used bins upstairs, cross to Mobius and Shorty's, and finish on a night when No. 9 Lounge has something on.
If you're browsing the bins on Mount Vernon Avenue and wondering how this stretch of Del Ray affects what your own place is worth, Josh Harris can give you a straight answer with no pressure attached. Get your instant home valuation, then grab a record on the way home.
