Lubbock: The Spins Vinyl Café

Evelyn Mendez’s father never stopped playing music. He played it around the house every day, obsessively. That habit became a family memory. That family memory became The Spins Vinyl Café Lubbock.

The café opened in 2025 in the old Sugar Browns building at 1947 19th Street, across from Lubbock High School and close to Texas Tech. The owners always knew they wanted a café. But they also wanted an experience. Once they found the space, centering it around vinyl felt inevitable. The records didn’t just decorate the room. They gave The Spins its identity.

Otis Blue and Tuesday Morning Coffee

Instead of a random playlist on shuffle, The Spins chooses weekly vinyl themes. The ’50s, the ’60s, the ’70s — each decade gets its turn. A themed Saturday breakfast starts each week’s chapter. Regulars come back to see what’s spinning next. The menu runs to house coffee, lattes, matcha with house-made syrups, boba, breakfast sandwiches, and tamales. Ask Evelyn to name the café’s one defining record and she reaches for Otis Blue by Otis Redding. “Timeless, soulful, welcoming, and full of character,” she says. That’s the room she’s trying to build. For the vinyl-focused side of the city’s music culture, Ralph’s Records has been at 82nd Street since 1980.

The Spins isn’t trying to be a record store. It’s trying to be a room where the music never stops. Evelyn’s father would approve.

I’ve been here ♪