Salad Days Records, Langley WA
“It was a dark, drab, windowless room. We had to make that darkness a feature, not a bug.”
We had been looking for quite some time for a physical space to open up that would suit our needs. In a small town like Langley, spaces are limited. You almost certainly won’t get the ideal space and will have to compromise at many points along the way. When we initially found the space in the “Langley” building the only room left was in the middle - a dark room with no windows. It wasn’t ideal for the classic mid-century record store we wanted to create. So we pivoted.
Building A Tropical Paradise
The pivot was towards a tiki vibe, an tropical escapist paradise that only works in dark places. We had to redesign everything from scratch. We started with renders of what the space could look like as we began planning the space. We realized early on the potential risks that would come designing a space like this. There is nothing like this in town. It would be impossible to gauge interest or if spending so much time on the design and build phase would be worth it in the end. But we trusted our gut and just went for it. Andy essentially built the entire store from the ground up by himself over the course of a few months.
Now we are within a month or so of opening and the work has finally started to pay off. We had the help of so many local community artists along the process that really added so many great details to the space. And this was in a way the point all along - to continue the community building we started at the old Salad Design space with our listening sessions. We are more excited than ever to begin using the new space to continue to bring the community together on Whidbey Island.
