Ever since the early-1990's, I've always been a huge music fanatic as I've collected hundreds of vinyl records (in 33 1/3 and 45 format), cassettes, compact discs, and now that we're well into the mid-2020's, digital. This takes me to a place that takes you back to simpler times from a musical perspective and this is none other than "MediumRare Records". Located at the WAL (Warehouse Artist Lofts) Public Market at the 11th and R St's in Downtown Sacramento, this small business has been in operation dating back to 2015. Hours of business here are 11am-5pm seven days a week. Since this business is in a large indoor public market, many of the neighboring businesses also have very similar hours of operation. What I particularly and thoroughly enjoy about this place is that they focus primarily on vinyl records. This includes a ton of genres including blues, soul, jazz, R&B, classic rock, the British invasion, big band, swing, classical, and much more. Many of the standard records are around the $15-25 range while they offer deep discounts on other records for less than $5. In addition, this place also offers quite a few CD's as well. I also like how this business focuses on major well-known artists/groups such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles as there are dedicated sections displaying their album art and other collectibles. I do want to point out that for the non-musical kind, this place also carries a neat (yet small) assortment of books and other vintage memorabilia. I also wanted to add that they buy, sell, and trade various forms of music (mainly records) as long as it is near-new condition. The service here was above average as I spent at least 30 minutes browsing the aisles of their diverse and unique selection. All in all, "MediumRare Records" is a must-visit place if you're a huge fan of vintage music as myself. Since I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was always into the huge music stores such as "Amoeba" and "Rasputin". So for Sacramento to offer this is a big plus. With a nice selection, decent prices, and a great area in a cozy public market, I am giving this small business an above average four stars. read more

MediumRare Records - Lots of vintage memorabilia inside this place - Vinyl Records Near Me - Sacramento, California

I went here today to buy my wife a Mother's Day gift and this store was great! RJ was awesome and I will definitely come back. They have a good selection of records. read more

How do you like your records? Medium rare? Well if you don't. You may now. Let me explain. MediumRare Records & Collectibles is a shop that buys, trades, and sells vintage vinyl, cassette tapes, and CDs. The shop is filled with a good amount of vinyl records from various genres. Jazz, metal, R&B, country... you name it. The record prices average $20. But they do have a $4 bargain rack that is definitely worth taking a look at. That rack is towards the back corner. Plus they have some pretty neat collectibles on display such as a John Lee Hooker signed harmonica and Beatles album trading cards. The interior has a cool, funky relaxed look and vibe. It's super clean and organized. Because seriously, who wants to shop in dirty chaos... no one. The shop is an actual brick n mortar in the heart of the Historic R Street District in midtown Sacramento. The area is an urban retail area with lots of shops and eateries that locals and vistors alike like to visit. The shop is in the WAL Public Market building. The building is a renovated brick warehouse. read more

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Very knowledgeable and serious about vinyl quality. Expert knowledge. Very organized due to personally made tags with ratings, quality rating and personal notes. Owner had great stories and made connections. Clean store. Best record store I have been too. read more

Employees are knowledgeable and they have a great selection for not having much space! Always fun to poke around and see what they've got. Location is cool too! read more

Best record store I have visited! Every time my daughter, husband and I travel we visit record stores whatever we are. We have been in record stores in Oaxaca, San Diego, Arizona, Portland, Palm Springs, Reno and this place by far has been the best. The place is pristine, very clean and well organized, easy to navigate. Marty the owner is awesome! Very knowledgeable and kind and shared with us some nice stories. We are already talking about going back to Sacramento just to pay him a visit. We left the place with three vinyls and big smiles in our faces. Thank you! (I wish I have taken better pictures) read more

MediumRare Records - Vinyl Records Near Me - Sacramento, California

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Awesome record store! Love The Beach Boys section! Love the owner & the other staff! The Clarences read more

Quality! The selection of music, the condition, and the collector quality, including rare records. Marty is very friendly, welcoming, and knowledgeable. I would add this stop for anyone's road trip through Sacramento. read more

Love this spot! I like to come here on my lunch breaks and just poke around a little. I always find something I want to own. Their bargain bins are pretty substantial and definitely have some hidden gems. The service is always good and they're available to sample records if you ask. I like the location a lot too. Its inside a market type atmosphere with other shops and food around. You can make it into a great feast, shop break. I also wanted to mention that they're almost always playing music I love. I find myself coming back a lot. read more

MediumRare Records - I - Vinyl Records Near Me - Sacramento, California

This spot in inside the WAL on R market. If you've never been, you go onto the deck then enter the WAL. It's basically a hall with businesses lining the inside. This store is towards the back on the left side. This place has a really good collection of rare/signed older records. Think Dolly Parton, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, AC/DC, etc. There's a good selection of other genres as well. There's really something here for everyone and the staff are really helpful. Depending on when you go you may be able to snag a parking spot right on r street in front but if not, there's plenty of parking on the surronding blocks. It's also a few blocks away from an R street lightrail stop. read more

amazing selection, super cute store! owner is very helpful and friendly as well. large amount of options and styles of music which is always awesome. read more

MediumRare Records - interior - Vinyl Records Near Me - Sacramento, California

Very nice vinyl in great condition. The prices are right on and the service is very good. They have vinyl, CD's and some games and odds and ends from the past for sale. If you like vinyl or want to sale your vinyl this is the place to come. Located in the back of shopping area. read more

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Love this place. My favorite record store in town. Really friendly/knowledgeable staff and great stuff. I tend to get lost in this store - in a good way. I end up leaving with more that I was expecting. read more

Cool little record shop with a decent used selection. Part of a larger vintage shop, or so it seemed, so they had stuff beyond records for sale. Bonus points for a friendly salesperson who took a special order request and was able to have a decent conversation on The Beat (RIP) and Kraftwerk. Prices seemed reasonable, given the current cost of vinyl. They did have a little bit more of the "easy find" sort of records in the used section, which is the only reason they didn't get five stars, but as previously mentioned, they were happy to do a special order. I'll be stopping here regularly. read more

Great spread! Good vibes. Cool prices. What else could you need from a record store? Yet, another great Sac record store.

This store has it all! The gentleman behind the counter was helpful and wanted to be there! They had every record or recording you could want. It's hard to put a value on some of the items for sale but everything in there was fair. We will be back when we are in town again. Thanks!! read more

Amazing service, the man working behind the counter was amazing. Very knowledgeable and friendly! Would recommend!

If you want to have your mind blown, and add legit rare jazz albums to your personal collection, you have come to Medium Rare. Marty (the owner), has some serious heat on the regular. We're talking 1500 series deep groove Blue Note first presses (and I mean a lot of them), not to mention Prestige, Impulse, VIK, the list goes on. I'm both proud and grateful to have such a dedicated, knowledgeable, generous dealer here in Sacramento. Do yourself a favor, get down to Medium Rare. You will not be disappointed! read more

MediumRare Records - BLP 1506 & 1510 MONO - Vinyl Records Near Me - Sacramento, California

of the four shops i went today, mediumrare was probably my least favorite ... i doubt i'll go back. the place is fine ... love the location ... easy parking and you can get grub or walk around after digging through the crates. selection was okay ... but nothing that really stood out. i did get a used neil diamond for $4 ... so there's that. as for the rest of the prices, maybe a bit on the high side (compared to other shops). still ... i suggest you go check it out ... but just know there might be better bargains out there elsewhere. oh yeah ... kudos to the shop guy there. he was friendly, asked if i needed anything, and was rockin' out big time to either sabbath or ozzy (i wasn't sure ... lol). read more

We were the only ones of our race in the store today. The young man who was working there (thin, ponytail, glasses) kept interrupting our shopping experience by making excuses to come where we were, even though there were other customers in the store he could have gone around. He kept hovering around us like we were going to shoplift or something. We are in our 50s and 60s, retirees! I felt so uncomfortable (and upset), I left the store to wait for my partner at the tables outside. While my partner continued to shop, there was no way I would give a penny at this unwelcoming place! read more

This review is purely on our experience asking Marty for his help to look at some vintage original Beatles posters we recently acquired. Since these were definitely original and some very unique posters we wanted to have them looked at before we frame or mount any of them. I was referred to Marty after looking for a Beatles collectibles expert in our area and his name was given to me. I called him to explain exactly what I had, and he told me he definitely could help me and to come down. We visited his very nice store today with our collection of posters and other items for him to look at as we had discussed the previous week. We got there shortly after he had opened at noon and when I told him who I was and that we spoke the week earlier, he seemed to be uninterested and told us until he had his coffee he wasnt going to look at what we brought to discuss it. We were definitely ok with that and weren't in any hurry so that wasn't what started to make us uncomfortable with Marty. When he came back with his coffee and came over to us he said to leave the box of posters on the ground and he would look through them. I figured he would grab one at a time and carefully unroll on a table or something to make sure not to tear or crease the posters in order to see what they were and the condition. But then he grabbed one and with one hand started to try and unroll it in the air and when it wasn't unrolling he then placed it on the ground to try and unroll it there but still with one hand... We were absolutely terrified by this, but we remained very calm and quickly suggested we move the operation to a table or something. So we go to a table thats not in his store, but out in the hallway for some reason. I set the box on the table and he started to look at them again and at this point I was hoping he showed more care and attention than what he did a moment earlier. Right away he began handling them as if they came from Walmart out of the $5 rack and started rambling about not being valuable before even looking at them with any real evaluative approach. He also then says how he isn't big into posters, and really starts to downplay the value of posters, to the point of saying nobody wants them because they take up wall space. We let him talk for a bit being respectful of his Beatles expertise. But in the end it was a big waste of our time, and almost could have ruined our property with how he handled it. Especially if you don't even know what the poster is, you should not handle it like you know it's not valuable beforehand! On a side note one of the posters he looked at I had recently found out was quite collectible. Marty did look at that one and was quick to say it wasn't worth much, but also admitted he had never seen it. I won't say what I was offered but his value was nowhere near what it was so definitely not a good resource for posters folks. read more

Came here on New Year's Eve day, last minute dig to wrap up the year. Marty's shop delivered and then some! Great guy, really friendly and professional, but also makes you feel welcome and comfortable. Left with some seriously raw finds, stuff I've searched far and wide for, all original pressings too. He even gave me a deal on a pretty rare record that I saw at the wall while checking out (my weakness). Will definitely be back, this is the new go-to spot. read more

Very nice shop. Friendly staff. Eclectic selection of vinyl. Good atmosphere. Only thing I would change is add a few items to the shop inventory to make it more Turntablist friendly. Slip mats, Serato control vinyl, scratch records, etc. Still get 5 stars for selling me Abbey Road. read more

MediumRare Records - Vinyl Records Near Me - Sacramento, California

RJ remembers that you are a returning customer and does not downgrade the customer!! He also does not forget to call a customer back before they make a long trip down there, he up sells Sacramento California is considered one worst customer service areas in the Nation and if anyone has been to foreign countries Sacramento may have one of top ten worst customer service ratings in the world? I found hundreds of people in Sacramento county and Placer county that never been to other states or foreign countries and don't speak English very well? RJ is a Diamond in Rough, since a lot Staff in any store does not know that California maybe the most expensive place I been in the World read more

A must-see for all vinyl collectors. Marty, the owner, is one of the nicest business owners I've met, and he was very welcoming to me in his store. I asked a bunch of probably stupid questions and Marty was always there to help with a smile. 11/10 definitely come here if you can! read more

Cool ass spot for cool ass records. I've been a vinyl collector for years and this spot was beautiful! I was visiting my family in Sacramento and wanted to scout a record store. I found this one and wasn't disappointed. It sits in this cool little walk in mall but not just a regular old mall. They had some unique Restaurants and a resell shop right adjacent to the record store which was perfect for my wife. I went in there thinking I would have to dig fast to get back to family but they made it easy and convenient with the categorizing of the vinyl. They even had an 80's section of 45's! After grabbing a ton of recordsI was scared I wouldn't be able to carry everything on the plane but they offered to ship them back home for me for a very small fee. That really took me over the top. The next time I'm in Sacramento I will visit here for sure. Thanks for being awesome!! read more

Stumbled in the cool little spot while making our rounds. Friendly staff. Nice selection of new 180 gram vinyl. Small little section of "clearance" type used. Live music setting up inside. I bought some records and when in the neighborhood, I will always stop in. read more

Opens at 12:00pm on Sundays. It's only open, in fact, for four short hours on Sundays. Arrived at 12:05. Waited til 12:25 and no one ever showed up to open it. As a record collector, my average spend ranges from $100-$150. I only buy from indie shops. Then when this place goes under because the guy who was supposed to open the shop tied one on last night and slept in, they'll instead blame Amazon. read more

From my review on Kicksville (they are housed in the same spot) I like this spot; it has a decent selection and I have found some gems here. However, this is not the place to go if you are new to buying records or haven't been to a lot of stores and browsed those selections. I say that because there are a lot of records I see here that you can buy at many other stores for much less than the asking price at this store. If you know what you're looking for and know that the price is right, this is a good spot, otherwise, be cautious and be prepared to potentially find the same record (in the same condition) you just bought here for far less at another store. Like a said though it's a nice spot to check out, especially if you're looking for some rarer wax. Keep digging friends! read more

So glad I was able to visit this place during my quick visit to Sac. I wish I would have spent less time in the other local record shops and all of my time here. Incredible selection with a ton of super rare records all over the store. I was able to check off several items I've had on my want list for a long time. Most of the records I purchased were original pressings still with shrink and with the original hype stickers attached. In fact, everywhere I looked there was just quality stuff. Absolutely no junk. I wish I could have left with more. Marty, the owner is a super nice guy, and very knowledgeable. Would have loved to talked to him more. He also hooked me up with a record mailer so that I could pack and protect my records for my flight home tomorrow. Looking forward to another visit back here in the near future. read more

Shares a space with Kicksville in case you were wondering. Awesome selection of vinyls and VERY well organized. It's not just alphabetized, it's even broken up by artist in a lot of cases. Best selection of NEW 180 gram vinyls I've seen so far. Prices are pretty much on par with the market (including online). Around 30 bucks for a new vinyl. It's hard not to spend a lot of money is this place. read more

Medium Rare Records is a laid back, non-obtrusive atmosphere where one can find and purchase an awesome selection of Vinyl, CD's, and cassettes for even more awesome prices. The owner Marty and his cohort John, are two extremely cool and knowledgeable guys who will treat you like family from the minute you walk through the door. Furthermore, I was duly impressed with their highly expansive NM to M Jazz collection that they had for sale. Needless to say, my Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sintara collections added a few vinyl friends that day. Overall, if you're looking for a place that has a relaxed vibe that intices you to look through the bins for hours, this is the place for you. read more

A GREAT place for finding all ranges of records! I had such a wonderful time browsing and not feeling intimidated. Marty (owner) was singing and talking to everybody in the shop. He's very helpful and great at making his patrons feel at ease in his store. Can't wait to visit here again! Xo read more