Sarah M.
Yelp
The problem with Cheapo, as I see it, is what others may view as its greatest attribute: they only have the weird obscure stuff. Case in point: look in the Miles Davis section. On a recent visit, there was only one disc in this section: not Kind of Blue, not Sketches of Spain, not Witches Brew-- but the tribute to Jack Johnson album. No, not THAT Jack Johnson (thank god their paths never crossed!), but still-- a record store that doesn't have Kind of Blue? Huh. Same goes for the Beatles section. You'll encounter bizarro picture discs and interview albums, but the classic full-lengths themselves are MIA.
This likely owes to Cheapo's status as one of an increasingly rare breed: a record store whose stock is almost entirely-- perhaps 95% or more-- used. This means the stock depends on what the people are bringing in, and when the people are beginning to think it might be good to hold on to that old Miles record, after all, they probably won't sell it to the store.
Yet, for deep appreciators of obscurity like my dad, whom I previously thought owned every single record ever pressed, Cheapo is a godsend. Here he encountered what I would perceive as mediocre, but what he sees as memory-provoking, long-lost pop records he hadn't seen in twenty years and probably never thought he'd see again.
Pricing is OK, averaging about $6-8 per record and about the same for CDs. There are a lot of sealed LPs, but very few are actually "new", leading me to believe Cheapo landed itself a huge pile of deadstock at some point.
And with a huge selection of oldies, rock/pop, world, and even gospel, Cheapo can appeal to a wide audience. The CD selection is not great but not shabby, and there are some hidden gems to be found in the video section as well.