Baton Rouge is home to a few locally owned record stores, but there is only one business where customers can shop for reasonably priced vintage vinyl with the assistance of a friendly pet bird.
Lagniappe Records, open 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, is home to many interesting sights and sounds.
The store is owned by musicians Tess Brunet and Patrick Hodgkins, along with Brunet’s pet cockatiel, Agnes.
“She’s our mascot,” Hodgkins joked.
While Lagniappe is proud to belong to the Baton Rouge community, it did not always call its current building at 705 St. Joseph St. its home.
The shop first opened in July 2013 and previously was operated from a small house, which Brunet and Hodgkins rented out. Barely a year later, Brunet and Hodgkins reopened the store at its much larger location.
Brunet and Hodgkins said their hard work is beginning to pay off.
“It feels really good,” Brunet said. “We had to start small out of necessity, and I’m glad that we did because it enabled us to not over-shoot and grow organically.”
Lagniappe’s current building was built in 1949 and has been home to a variety of businesses in its time.
Brunet said the building was once the home of Triangle Grocery, a local grocery store that thrived in the 1950s and ’60s. The building was also home to a beauty salon, Salon Dolce’, for nine years before Lagniappe Records took over.
One of the things that stayed behind during the building’s change of business is a hand-painted door representing the Dalai Lama by local artist Patrick Brabham.
Brabham, who committed suicide last year, was known for his typically dark style. Brunet said Brabham had painted two different doors that reflected a more peaceful style, and one of those doors just happened to be in the current Lagniappe building. Brunet was able to convince Brabham’s friend to let her keep the door just before he could take it away.
“I told him what we were doing here and he thought that it was so cool and he believed in it, even when the place was bare bones,” Brunet said.
Brunet also promised to erect a plaque in Brabham’s memory above the door.
Lagniappe Records’ new building retains the colorful, eye-catching style of its predecessor, but its new, bigger location is the most significant change.
With the change in scale, Brunet and Hodgkins brought along a few additions they thought customers would enjoy. Lagniappe Records now offers French Press Coffee as well as communal seating areas with access to free Wi-Fi, so customers can read or study.
But seating areas aren’t the only thing that’s expanded at Lagniappe since the move.
“We have twice as many records out on the floor.” Brunet said. “We’re also about to add another 2,000 records to the inventory.”
Lagniappe Records sells both vintage and newly released vinyl, but the store’s main focus is vintage records. The ratio of vintage to new vinyl is about 70:30, Hodgkins said. Most of the store’s vintage records are either sold to the store by customers for a trade-in price or donated to the store for free.
The store’s vintage albums are priced reasonably; some vintage albums by popular classic rock bands are marked as low as $10.
“We have the cleanest records in town.” Hodgkins said. “We price our records to be competitive — not with other stores in town, but with the Internet.”
Brunet and Hodgkins know modern shoppers research pricing at online retailers, and they use this to their benefit when pricing items.
“You’re looking at items roughly $5 to $8 cheaper than what you’d find on the Internet.” Brunet said.
Though their vintage vinyl runs at lower prices, the price of newer releases remains consistent with other online retailers, minus shipping costs.
Brunet and Hodgkins understand the popularity and ease of online shopping, but said they always recommend buying vinyl from local shops.
“Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until it finds you,” Hodgkins said. “That also applies to life, but mostly it applies to records.”
Along with vinyl, Lagniappe Records sells guitar picks, drumsticks and turntables. The store also provides customers with music lessons outside of shop hours taught by Brunet and Hodgkins.
Along with selling vinyl, Brunet and Hodgkins hope to make Lagniappe Records a community hotspot by holding events throughout the year.
Typically on the last Thursday of every month, the store hosts Lagniappe After Hours, late-night events where adult customers can bring their own beer and hang out at the store. During these events, the store screens music documentaries to customers on a projector within the store. They also plan to hold “Mario Kart” tournaments.
“All ages come,” Brunet said. “It’s a diverse mix of really cool people.”
“We have a really diverse collection of music, and that kind of reflects in our customer base,” Hodgkins said.
With all of these ventures, Brunet and Hodgkins have no intentions of slowing down.
“We’re also a DIY record label,” Brunet said. “We have our first release coming out this fall.”
Brunet and Hodgkins said Lagniappe is distributing a 7-inch record for the Chambers, an alternative rock band from Baton Rouge. They plan to release more albums with their label in the future, but for now, they are focusing on planning more events and opening more space on the main floor.
Brunet said Lagniappe Records will also be partnering with The Elevator Project to host the third iteration of the Prospect New Orleans video series, appropriately titled Prospect.3. The video series will shine a light on cultural and artistic landscapes around New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Prospect.3 will run from October 2014 through January 2015.
Brunet and Hodgkins’ ambition is a testament to how much they respect the business they have dedicated themselves to, and it is a sign of the good things to come from Lagniappe Records.
“It’s been our dream to open a record store,” Hodgkins said. “It’s what we love to do. We just love music.”

Gallery • 11 Photos

Raegan Labat

Lagniappe Records new location sells a new variety of music and instrument accessories.