Central Square since 1954. Started in the basement of Skippy White's.
- Shop
- Cheapo Records
- Address
- 538 Massachusetts Avenue
- Town
- Cambridge, United States
- Established
- 1954
- Formats
- Vinyl, CDs, 7"
- Crates
- Rock, Soul, Funk, Jazz, House, Disco, Hip-hop, Blues, Reggae, Punk
- In the shop
- Buys collections
- Opening hours
- Mo-We 11:00-19:00; Th-Fr 11:00-21:00; Sa 11:00-19:00; Su 11:00-17:00
Cheapo has been in Central Square since 1954, which makes it one of the oldest record shops still trading anywhere. It began in the basement of Skippy White's, moved across the street and traded for a while as the Cambridge Music Box, and got its name from an early three-for-five-dollars deal that stuck. Bob Perry took it over from Allen Day in 2016 and found it running on vapours, barely covering the rent; he credits the recovery to a staff who between them will stock anything rather than chase a trend. Dollar records by the door, dance and house at five, and everything else filed by genre and era in labelled crates