This record store is owned and run by DJs, with top-notch local coffee, biscotti and stacked sangas by day, and natural wine, wood-fired pizza, and classic cocktails at night.
Behind an unassuming shopfront at the northern end of Smith Street is a record store living a double life. Skydiver Records started out as a straight-up vinyl shop, opening in 2016 in a tiny 30-square-metre space on Johnston Street, Fitzroy. In 2022, its owners schlepped it over to a slightly roomier home just around the corner, and it quietly morphed into something more at the same time.
First and foremost, the new Skydiver is still a record store. But it’s now also part cafe, wine bar and pizza joint. By day there’s a nicely considered selection of records to flick through paired with coffee by Everyday, homemade biscotti, and stacked focaccia sandwiches – perhaps maybe ham, jalapeño and provolone cheese. As the sun goes down, staff move through the space, flipping the lids on the wooden record bins and transforming them into high-top tables. The retail counter is now the bar. The staff member who found the ’80s reissue you were looking for? They’re making you a Negroni.
The drinks list gives even weight to local and international gear, with lots of the latter from Italy. Of the two beers on tap you might find Orion, a Japanese rice lager from Okinawa alongside something from Sydney’s Philter. Rotating tinnies include a sour or two, a gluten-free beer and a cider, and on the non-alcoholic front there’s Tina, a low-sugar canned soft drink, and Heaps Normal, an alcohol-free beer.
Wine is all minimal intervention and there’s plenty of good stuff by the glass. Expect at least a couple of skin-contact wines (made from white grapes with the skins left on) like the popular Fistful of Flowers, a menu mainstay from small-batch Gippsland winery Momento Mori.
The owners are all DJs (Mark Free of Everyday Coffee and dance-party series Daydreams, Mike Wale, who plays as DJ Orca; and Tom Moore of DJ duo Otologic and party-planning crew Animals Dancing), so you know what you’re listening to is given as much attention as what you’re drinking. On weekends, local club DJs, collectors and musicians are on tunes, and staff take care of things the rest of the time – most of them are DJs, too.
The collection is mostly second-hand, sourced from friends, DJs and walk-ins with collections to sell, but there’s a steady stream of new stock, too. Expect lots of house, techno, disco, synth-pop, drum and bass, jungle and trance, some more down-tempo and ambient stuff, as well as new releases and reissues of ’80s and ’90s albums that might have been overlooked at the time.
