Young Ones operates as a record store at 26 South Whiteoak Street in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, a small Berks County borough whose identity is shaped heavily by Kutztown University, the public university whose student population gives the town a younger, more culturally active character than its size alone would suggest. That college-town backdrop matters for a record shop, since a steady base of students and faculty tends to sustain the kind of niche, format-specific retail that might struggle to survive in a town without a university nearby, and it helps explain why a dedicated vinyl and music shop has found a foothold on a quiet residential-adjacent street just off the borough’s compact downtown core.
Kutztown is also known well beyond Berks County as the home of the long-running Kutztown Folk Festival, a Pennsylvania Dutch heritage event that has drawn visitors to the borough for decades and given the town a broader regional profile than many similarly sized Pennsylvania communities. A record shop operating in a town with that kind of established visitor traffic and cultural identity sits at an interesting crossroads between serving its everyday local base, students and longtime residents alike, and catching the attention of visitors who come through for the festival, nearby Kutztown University events, or simply a day trip through the surrounding farmland and small-town shopping district.
As a record store, Young Ones fits into the broader independent music retail landscape that has seen a genuine resurgence over the past decade, as vinyl sales have climbed back from their early-2000s low point and a new generation of collectors has rediscovered physical formats alongside longtime enthusiasts who never stopped buying records. Shops like this one typically serve as gathering points for that community, a place where collectors compare notes on pressings, staff can point newcomers toward artists and genres worth exploring, and the simple act of flipping through bins becomes as much a social activity as a shopping trip. Whiteoak Street’s residential setting gives the shop a neighborhood feel distinct from the more tourist-facing shops clustered directly on Kutztown’s Main Street corridor.
Anyone planning a visit can reach the store directly at (610) 683-5599 to check current hours or ask about specific titles, genres, or new arrivals before making the trip, since a shop of this scale and format tends to see its available inventory shift regularly as new stock comes in and popular pressings sell through. For collectors already making a circuit of the Lehigh Valley and Berks County’s small-town shopping districts, a stop in Kutztown adds a college-town record store to a day that might otherwise focus on the region’s better-known antiques markets.
Young Ones stands, in short, as a record store rooted in a small Pennsylvania college and festival town, giving Kutztown’s students, longtime residents, and visiting day-trippers a dedicated stop for vinyl and recorded music in a borough better known nationally for its folk festival than its record shops.
