Two men who are French in name only are the proprietors of a brand-new record shop on the bustling Taché Avenue commercial strip in St. Boniface.
“I think it would be bold to call myself a francophone, but allegedly I am fluent in French,” says 22-year-old Sam French, who with his dad Ryan French opened the appropriately named Frenchie’s Records and Coffee 10 days before Halloween.
Soundtracked by the Talking Heads, with Ryan’s dad Jim doing inventory behind the tidy shop’s coffee counter, the Frenches – who share an affinity for wax and beans — recalled a fateful family dinner six months earlier when the concept of opening a record store started making sense.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Sam (left) and Ryan French are a father/son duo and co-owners of Frenchie’s Records and Coffee on Tache Avenue.
“I mentioned how I was joking with a co-worker about the idea of starting a record store and a little café, and you (Ryan) clicked on it immediately, saying, ‘I’ve also had that thought in my head,’” says Sam, who spent three years working at Across the Board, a game café in the Exchange District.
“I remember immediately grabbing a piece of paper to doodle out a plan, which is nowhere close to what this place looks like now.”
While Sam’s experience with record stores was solely as a customer, Ryan, 54, began working in shops in 1990. On Vancouver’s Granville Street, he was employed by A&A Records, and when he returned to Winnipeg, he was hired on at Music City.
“There was one at Polo Park and one downtown and they were a formative part of my 20s,” says French, who spent his earnings building his own collection and on tickets to new wave and punk shows at the Spectrum, now known as the Pyramid Cabaret.
When it came time to consider a family plan, however, Ryan turned to office jobs. For 25 years, he worked as a sales and account manager in the consumer packaged goods industry with products made by companies such as Canada Dry, Motts and Dr. Pepper-Keurig, for which he was a sales director. Most recently, he worked for Peak of the Market.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
The Frenches say their goal was to build a shop to allow an equal balance of commerce and hanging out.
But after downsizing with his wife, Michelle Kreutzer, from their Riverview house two years ago into an empty-nest St. Boniface condo, and as Sam’s business acumen began to align with his own, the elder French considered trying something new. Spurred on by one another, father and son both quit their jobs to see how vinyl played out.
They developed early concepts for the shop, ultimately deciding to set themselves apart by merging the complementary product streams of coffee and records.
Listening to their own desires as consumers helped the Frenches guide their vision, acquiring small collections to accumulate a bit of stock before settling on their Taché storefront.
“We started saying ‘If it happens…’ and those words came out less and less as time went on,” says Sam, who mostly listens to punk and psychedelic rock.
Ryan French says the choice to open in St. Boniface was grounded in his desire to have a neighbourhood record shop to peruse himself.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Sam French whips up a cappuccino.
“What I didn’t want to do was be competition (to other stores),” he says, giving a shout-out to shops such as Winnipeg Tape and Record Co., Argy’s and Into the Music as favourites in the local sonic ecosystem.
The Frenches say a goal was to add to that ecosystem by building the shop to fit the neighbourhood. Coffee and records meshed with the desire to allow an equal balance of commerce and hanging out.
“I don’t think there’s anything we want more out of this space than for people to loiter. If they buy something, that’s awesome, and of course that’s logically the goal,” says Sam.
They also want their local section to span generations, stocking ’70s blues rockers Mood Jga Jga near up-and-coming folk artist Madeleine Roger. During their interview with the Free Press, local artist CEC walks in to drop off five copies of their debut EP, which Ryan French particularly likes. The first record sold in the store was the Stone Roses’ self-titled 1989 debut album.
While the record selection is a mix of new and used releases, the shop also sells equipment from companies such as Audiotechnica. As for beverages, they’re serving Winnipeg-made Sheepdog cold brew alongside beans from Toronto’s Hatch Coffee Roasters and tea from Montreal’s Camellia Sinensis Teahouse.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
The Frenches say the first record sold in their store was the Stone Roses’ self-titled 1989 debut album.
Despite its kitty logo, Frenchie’s doesn’t have a store pet; however, Sam and Ryan French are open to name suggestions for the coolest cat on Taché, who rocks sunglasses all day and has a lightning bolt on his cheek. François, peut-être?
ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com
Ben Waldman
Reporter
Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.
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