On the last weekend of September, Crooked Beat Records opened its doors in a townhouse at 2101B Mount Vernon Avenue. Neighbors said the building had been empty for more than a decade. Two weeks earlier and directly across the street, Mobius Records had opened at 2016 Mount Vernon Avenue. The second store opened with the first one's support.
ALXnow reported that Michael Babin, principal at Neighborhood Restaurant Group, had told the outlet that Crooked Beat owner Bill Daly supported Mobius opening, because it would make Del Ray more of a destination for record shoppers. That is the clearest description of what this stretch of Mount Vernon Avenue has become this fall. A short run of the 2000 block now has two record stores, a sandwich counter and a taproom within sight of each other.
How the 2000 block came together this fall
Each of these businesses took over a space that had closed or sat empty. Here is the block as it stands in mid-October 2026.
| Address | Business | What it replaced | Status as of Oct. 11, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003a Mount Vernon Ave. | Crooked Run Fermentation taproom | Dolce & Bean, closed spring 2025 | Open |
| 2016 Mount Vernon Ave. | Mobius Records and Shorty's Deluxe | Mulberry Lane Play Café | Open since Sept. 12 |
| 2101B Mount Vernon Ave. | Crooked Beat Records | A townhouse vacant for years | Soft opening, grand opening still ahead |
The three openings came close together. Crooked Run set an Aug. 28 target for its taproom, and Mobius opened on Sept. 12. Crooked Beat began soft hours on Sept. 25. So in about a month, the block gained two reasons to come back on a weekend afternoon and one place to sit down between them.
Two shops built for different crates
The two stores don't stock the same things. That helps explain why the owners see each other as neighbors rather than rivals.
Crooked Beat has deep Del Ray roots. Daly opened it in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1997. It spent seven years in Old Town North before moving to an underground shop at 2417 Mount Vernon Avenue in 2023. Flooding at that basement location led to its closure in May, and The Zebra reported that a longtime customer helped arrange the rent-to-own deal on the new building. According to The Zebra, used vinyl fills the upper level and new releases the ground floor, while the top story serves as offices for Daly's independent label. The Zebra also described bins devoted to local bands and labels, including Fugazi, Bad Brains and Dischord Records. Display cards and artist dividers are lettered by hand. The shop takes its name from "The Crooked Beat," a song on The Clash's 1980 album Sandinista!, and it turns 29 this November.
Mobius arrives with different backing. Owner Dempsey Hamilton opened the Alexandria store with Neighborhood Restaurant Group's Michael Babin, Nathan Anda and Greg Engert. The Alexandria Brief reported that the shop would carry new releases, reissues and used records across genres, plus CDs and cassettes. The partnership also brought plans to take music beyond the store, with DJ nights and live performances at Evening Star Café and Record Store Day events in the Hi/Fi Tex-Mex courtyard.
So one store is a long-running independent with a punk-rooted label and a strong local-music section. The other is tied to a restaurant group that already operates nearby rooms where events can happen. Someone who browses both in one afternoon gets two different sets of records.
Plan around a Saturday afternoon
The posted hours explain how the block works better than any description of its mood. They don't line up neatly, and the overlap is narrower than most people would guess.
- Shorty's Deluxe, which shares the 2016 space with Mobius, is Chef Nathan Anda's sandwich shop, pouring coffee and espresso alongside sandwiches, soups and salads. It lists daily hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the full menu from 11 a.m.
- Crooked Beat posts soft-opening hours of Thursday and Friday from 3 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 7 p.m. The store's site lists Sunday as 1 to 6 p.m., while The Zebra's account of the first week gave Sunday as noon to 6 p.m.
- Crooked Run Fermentation lists Monday through Thursday from 3 to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Its Sunday listing closes at 7 p.m. but shows an opening time that looks like a typo, so check before a Sunday visit.
On a weekday, the sandwich counter closes at 4 p.m., and Crooked Beat doesn't open until 3 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. That leaves about an hour when both are open. Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. is the widest window when Shorty's, Crooked Beat and the Crooked Run taproom are all open, which makes it the easiest afternoon to get lunch, browse both crates and finish with a drink. Mobius's regular weekly hours didn't appear in the coverage we reviewed, so confirm them directly.
Crooked Run's taproom is small, with Crooked Run beer, bar snacks, shaded outdoor seating and a dog-friendly policy. Two blocks up at 2218 Mount Vernon Avenue, Cubbies opened a Chicago-style sausage and hot-dog window above Del Ray Public House this summer, with announced Friday-through-Sunday hours. The Zebra reported in August that it sold out on its first Saturday. Its current hours are worth checking before you go.
Crooked Beat's schedule may change soon. Daly told ALXnow the store expected to be open full time within a week or so of reopening. The Zebra later reported that Thursday-through-Sunday hours would continue for several weeks before a grand opening. That puts the grand opening somewhere in October or November, close to the shop's November anniversary.
The fall calendar runs through the same blocks
The record-store cluster sits on the same stretch of Mount Vernon Avenue where the Del Ray Business Association holds most of its fall and holiday events. That means the block's busiest afternoons over the next two months are already on the calendar.
- Through Oct. 31: The Del Ray Artisans' "Carnival of Curiosities" exhibit is at 2704 Mount Vernon Ave.
- Mid-October: The Colasanto Interactive Fountain at the Del Ray Gateway, 2700 Mount Vernon Ave., opened Sept. 10. The city said its first season would end around now.
- Saturday, Oct. 17: Cinema Del Ray shows Toy Story 5 at dusk, around 7:30 p.m., on the Mount Vernon Rec Center field. It's free, with snacks for sale.
- Sunday, Oct. 25, 2 p.m.: The 30th Annual Del Ray Halloween Parade starts at E. Bellefonte Avenue, runs along Mount Vernon Avenue and ends with live music and awards at the Mount Vernon Rec Center field.
- Through Nov. 1: The Nightmare on the Avenue pop-up bar is running at 2312 Mount Vernon Ave., with a Halloween party on Saturday, Oct. 31.
- Nov. 26: The 51st Annual Alexandria Turkey Trot starts and ends at George Washington Middle School.
- Dec. 6: Del Ray's Holiday Season Kick-Off is at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square.
- Dec. 10: The Shops of Del Ray Holiday Sip & Shop runs along Mount Vernon Avenue.
- Dec. 12: The 11th Annual Del Ray Candy Cane Bar Crawl and the Del Ray Vintage & Flea Market at Mount Vernon and Bellefonte avenues fall on the same day.
The parade starts at E. Bellefonte, just north of where the record shops sit. The 2700 block arts and fountain stretch is farther up the avenue. Sip & Shop and the Candy Cane Bar Crawl both run along the avenue itself. For the first time, two December shopping nights will include two record stores on the route. Both stores sell gifts that are hard to find online, from hand-lettered used bins to cassettes, so the holiday events may be the first real test of Babin's idea that two shops draw more shoppers than one.
The 2000 block now has a record store on each side of the street, a sandwich counter open from 9 a.m. and a taproom with outdoor seats, all within a short walk of the parade route.
Ricardo Vasquez keeps track of how changes like a second record store affect the way a Del Ray block is used week to week. If you're thinking about how Mount Vernon Avenue's newest openings fit into your own plans in Alexandria, Ricardo Vasquez is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
