This legendary Columbia record shop has debuted renovations and upgrades. Take a look
The legend has returned home.
Papa Jazz Record Shoppe, a staple in Columbia’s Five Points neighborhood for more than four decades, has officially reopened its longtime storefront at 2014 Greene St. The return to that address comes after roughly five months of renovations to the space. Papa Jazz had been operating out of a temporary space at 747 Saluda Ave. since July while the remodeling was going on.
The return to 2014 Greene St. was marked Tuesday by a ceremony at the store that was attended by shop owner Tim Smith and his staff, Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann, City Councilman Will Brennan and a host of other city luminaries.
“We’ve got new flooring and infrastructure,” Smith said about the renovations at Papa Jazz. “This is the biggest upgrade we’ve ever done. Hopefully this will keep us here for another 45 years. There are new shelves, which we believe will make it easier to shop for vinyl.
“Hopefully it will be something that will make everybody happy. We have a big backlog of records that we bought while we were doing this, so there are thousands of new and used records that hopefully everybody will be excited to look at.”
Among the infrastructural upgrades at the shop was a complete replacement of the floor. A car struck the building at Papa Jazz back in the 1990s, and it led to some structural quirks through the years, including a dip in the floor. That dip has now been eliminated.
Christopher Bickel has been the record buyer at Papa Jazz for more than two decades. He said the recent upgrades to the stroefront on Greene Street have brought the shopping experience up a notch.
“We’ve doubled the amount of space we have for putting out vinyl,” said Bickel, who also is an increasingly well-known independent filmmaker. “That’s a huge deal right now. The floor is no longer in danger of caving in, which is good. The space in the aisles is wider, so there is more access for everybody and it’s not so claustrophobic. It’s just an upgrade, all-around.”
Five Points Association executive director Heather McDonald called the 2014 Greene St. location for Papa Jazz “iconic,” and said Smith has contributed greatly to the neighborhood’s culture through the years with the shop.
“We are very excited for him for all the years of record sales and CD sales and music exposure that he has offered to musicians here in our community,” McDonald said of Smith on Tuesday.
Rickenmann said Papa Jazz has been a keystone retailer for Five Points, the more than century-old village located just east of the University of South Carolina. He browsed through the records while he was there Tuesday, leaving with a Sam Cooke LP.
“Papa Jazz has been a staple here,” the mayor said. “Not only an integral part [of Five Points], but it has really stretched across generations. That’s what’s great about Papa Jazz. You can come down here and find any genre you want.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
